


Ad Esse Fortis

by HMaxMarius



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Robotech The Macross Saga
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMaxMarius/pseuds/HMaxMarius
Summary: On that day 80,000 humans were thrown into the far reaches of the solar system.  We weren't alone.  Before the Rain of Fire, before the Zentradi came, before even the arrival of the alien battlefortress, there were the Vampires.  It is a good thing we were ready... Ready to be strong.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I own neither Buffy the Vampier Slayer nor Robotech/Macross. There will be some limited quotations of Robotech dialog, namely things that would have been heard over comm systems or overheard by characters in public situations.
> 
>  **A/N:** This story was inspired by Cyclone's story that was abandoned back in 2006. It slips the Buffy characters into the Robotech canon. I will be using the Buffy characters and back story up through those events shown on TV in the Buffy and Angel series.

**Ad Esse Fortis**

**_Dreamscape_ **

_They say that in dreams you can neither taste nor smell._

_They are wrong._

_The acrid, burnt flint tang of the deep desert coated not only her throat, but also the insides of her nose. She knelt atop the dune, watching sharp lances of blue-white light pierce the surrounding sky only to crash against the horizon. The thunderous crack of their passage rolling across the sand like storm-driven waves. Clouds of dust ripped from the surface, chasing the intermingled and confused shock fronts._

_Armageddon._

_Her bones ached with anticipatory dread. Destruction was coming, annihilation such as the world had never faced. Neither a supernatural threat, nor a man-made one, but something other. An enemy she could not yet fathom how to fight._

_Against this backdrop the first slayer stood, fiery eyes staring at her. Time slowed. The sands around her feet still danced, but now she could see the individual grains following the bass rumble in slow waves across the ground. The beige wall loomed up to engulf the primitive. As it reached her she leaped, a black cloak trailing back from her shoulders like tattered wings, only to be swallowed by the oncoming destructive wave._

_In a blink, the dark figure spat from the top of the cloud, high above. There was a sharp, painful reflection of light, a flash that resolved into something the dreamer had never before seen. A matte black mechanical man more than ten times her height, a machine melding of magic and technology that thudded to the ground before her, knees flexed, head up and defiant against the coming storm._

_And at its heart beat the pulse of the slayer._


	2. Beginnings

**Beginnings**

> Events in Sunnydale had set the stage. 
> 
> The spell that had activated all of the potential slayers put people of power in a position to drive back the forces of darkness and helped create the peace needed in the wake of the crash of the alien ship. However, as time wore on, the slayers began to have visions of the coming conflict. The International Watcher's Council's carefully preserved copies of these girl's dream journals show just how much advance information they were able to assemble, but in the end they could be boiled down to one simple statement. Fire would rain from the sky and only a few places would be safe. 
> 
> The return of the lost council was the signal. The rain of fire was coming. It was time for them to move. When the slayers pulled out of so many cities the vampires thought they were going to have a field day. Of course, they had not been graced with the warning. 
> 
> Not all the slayers had received the same guidance with their warning either. In the confusion of the Zentradi attack, neither side noticed the disappearance of the majority of the friendly demon species who had made their hidden homes among humanity. Nor was it noted at the time just how many of our fellow humans went with them.
> 
> -Introduction from _Reigns of Fire: Slayers and the First Robotech War_

_Macross Island Arrivals & Customs_

Xander Harris stood outside customs at the Macross International Airport waiting for the last arrivals. The survivors of Sunnydale were all now on the island, even Giles with a library of books that had required a dedicated container box to deliver. Wrapped up in their own war at the Hellmouth, the arrival of the alien spacecraft had gone virtually unnoticed, except by Xander and Andrew. In the wake of the final battle with the First Evil however, Faith and Buffy's slayer dreams had made sure the new Council new exactly what was coming. Time was short and the newly activated Slayers needed to be trained up swiftly. Though the decision to relocate headquarters to the Island had been made quickly the survivors first scattered to the four corners of the globe to rebuild the support network the first had destroyed.

In the fifth year after landing, Faith and Xander had been the IWC advance team, getting a feel for the city that had sprung up around the crashed alien ship. The slayer had immediately gone to ground, connecting with the seamier side of the burgeoning community. Xander had parlayed his construction experience into a position expanding the military base, then helping to build the ever growing city. Willow and Kennedy had arrived next, Kennedy slipping seamlessly into the local social scene while Willow got herself hired as a research assistant to a Dr. Lang.

Xander chuckled as he thought about how excited Wills had been lately. She couldn't say much due to security restrictions, but one thing she had hinted at was that the alien technology had at least as much to do with magic as it did with mechanics. So much so that she had revealed her wiccan background to her boss. What she hadn't been able to tell her best friend was that they were now working on a unified theory incorporating magic to bridge quantum mechanics with relativity and thus explain the properties of the flower of life and protoculture. The Lang/Rosenberg theory was rapidly gaining traction among the technologists working on the alien craft.

“Xander!” A brunette blur wrapped herself around his waist. “Where's Willow?”

Blinking tears from his good eye he pulled the girl into a hug. “Nice to see you too, Dawn Patrol.”

The growl from within his arms let him know how Dawn felt about that particular nickname. In spite of being 23, she still didn't look a day over 16. Then again, the magics that seemed to be a constant companion had kept all of them looking incredibly young.

“I'd tread carefully Xander. I've got scars as proof of her teeth.”

Extracting an arm, he included the blond in the hug. “Hi Buffy. Wills' boss called a late meeting. She's stopping for Chinese on the way home later. Lets get your luggage and settle the two of you in.”

_One Year Later - Launch Day  
IWC Headquarters_

Launch day. According to the massed slayer dream journal entries, today was the most critical and dangerous day. In response, preparations had been made and those plans were now being set in motion.

Andrew stood at the door of the emergency shelter, counting the heads. As the last girl strolled through the opening, he and Giles threw their shoulders into the steel barrier, dogging it closed and then follwed down the stairs to the second door. The boom of the coming battle's first shot echoing down the shaft as Buffy sealed the second door.

At the back of the shelter sat hundreds of boxes holding the council's library. The girls had spent the last week carefully cataloging and crating the texts. There were also large quantities of non-perishable food and water. In fact, their shelter had sufficient supplies to support five times their number for several months. But the real treasure, the one that would earn the IWC access to the highest levels in the days to come were the seeds and seedlings. Slayer dreams were not required to signify the importance of the seed stocks. Once it became clear that the dreams were pointing toward a large population being trapped on a spacecraft far from home, the need to produce foodstuffs became abundantly clear.

Xander pulled a crate of seed corn up to the make-shift council table and sat down. With a long-suffering sigh he looked over at the older man showing the beginnings of gray in his brown hair. “That's it Giles. Everyone except Willow is here.”

“I do hope you are right that she will be safe aboard the ship.”

“As do I Giles.” The one-eyed construction worker answered.

Buffy walked up to the table. “First order of business. We should break out the mattresses and get folks settled. It will be a while before we're out of here.”

“Agreed.”

_SDF-1 Main Engineering_

“Rosenberg!”

Dizzy and nauseous, Willow Rosenberg, PHD (quantum mechanics) tried to clear her head and respond intelligibly. “I have no idea, Doctor Lang. It's like the ship had an instinctual response.” Willow bit down on her lip to stifle the urge to babble. The sudden release of energy from the reflex furnace had caught the entire team unawares. While the others were in shock at the behavior of the systems, Willow's unprepared and virtually unshielded magical senses had been nearly overwhelmed.

The chief robotechnologist looked around the room at the assembled experts and technicians. As he opened his mouth the combat alert klaxon sounded. “All engineering teams to your combat stations.”

Someone on the bridge patched the battle frequency through the 1mc system

_“Mayday mayday! SDF-1 this is Armor 10. Mayday!”_

_“Armor 2 is destroyed and Armor 10 is heavily damaged Sir.”_

With a thick Slavic accent, the quiet, introspective voice of Henry Gloval, the ship's Captain, then came over the speakers.

_“I had hoped this day wouldn't come in my lifetime. After we had finally achieved peace on our planet, now we face annihilation by alien forces whose power is beyond our imagination. I had hoped that war was a thing of the past, but here we go again._

_“All right! MOVE OUT!”_

_“Yes Sir!”_ The voice of the duty officer repeated the order. _“All forces... MOVE OUT!”_

“Rosenberg! Hot start the anti-gravity system. Carter! Bring the thrusters to standby. Everyone else, connect main power to the defense grid then prepare the primary drive systems!”

Willow swiftly strapped into her station and began keying in the startup sequence for the anti-gravity generators. Slipping on the station headset she elbowed the computer voice address system on while her left hand typed in the command links to the lift station on the bridge. “Computer, divert main power to the anti-gravity system. Bring the flywheels to rpm 600 and maintain in hot standby mode.”

_“Roger. Bringing Gravity Control systems 1 through 48 online. RPM 600k. Hot standby. Bridge command link enabled.”_

As more of the ship's systems were brought online, Willow's senses began to thrum in time with the rhythmic pulsing of the ships protoculture power source. Her nerves sang as the magical properties of the unleashed flower of life leached into the environment. With her immediate assignment accomplished, she took a moment to meditate and center herself against the overwhelming beat generated by the rising power levels in the reflex furnace. With a mental snort, she thought some shields against another flush like she had been nearly overwhelmed by when the main guns fired might also be in order. Her mediation soon focused on erecting those barriers.

_GCS Station 23_

Heavy vibrations rattled the deckplates of GCS Station 23. The two technicians reached out to grab the workstations in front of them.

“Ssonya, stattus.”

“Fflywheel hooolding stteady aat ssix hunndred thhoussand RPM.” She looked over at the other technician. “Wwhat abbout the vvibbrations, Rrolf?”

“Tthey're wwithin sppec. Bbarely.” He threw the switch indicating their station was ready for activation. 

In seven other stations similar discussions were held. None of them downchecked.

All of them should have.

_SDF-1 Main Engineering_

“Louise!” Willow screamed. “I can't compensate.”

Eight of the anti-gravity generators were located in sections of the ship that had to be extensively rebuilt. Unfortunately, human metallurgy was not up to the specifications of the alien equipment. With wrenching screeches, six of the eight generators tore completely free of the ship shortly after the bridge had commanded the lift. The remaining two wedged in the hull and suffered catastrophic cascade failure resulting in rapid unscheduled disassembly events. The remaining forty units were incapable of supporting the ship's mass.

_“We're going down. Impact in 20 seconds. All hands brace for impact.”_

“Firing thrusters,” Louise Carter replied. “I can slow us, but there's not enough time to spool up and fully compensate.”

_“Impact in 5 seconds! Brace! Brace! Brace!”_


	3. Fold

**Fold**

> The greatest mystery of the First Robotech War is the incident relating to the SDF-1's only attempt at a spacefold. Specifically the disappearance of the ship's fold drives. Over the years several efforts have been made to repeat the circumstances of the occurrence under laboratory conditions. This research has proven that strong gravity fields do have calculable effects on the distances that ships in foldspace travel. 
> 
> However, these calculations show that the SDF-1 should have been thrown much farther than the Kuiper belt and absolutely none of this research has yet explained why the SDF-1's fold engines decoupled from the rest of the ship and remained in foldspace. As Dr. Rosenberg is quoted in the immediate after-action debrief, while the salvage of Macross Island was still ongoing. “It's like someone reached out and yanked them away from us for reasons we cannot comprehend.” 
> 
> Interestingly, Dr. Rosenberg is the only Robotechnologist that made no further statements on the incident after the initial debrief. Nor did she become involved in any of the later attempts to recreate the incident. In response to a request from our editors for a comment, her only reply was “The key is: Fate wills. Accept the key and embrace fate's hand.” A response of the typically cryptic type that the early Robotechnologists espoused.
> 
> The Robotech Wars: Strange Facts and Mysteries
> 
>   
> 

_Watchers Council Shelter_

The tension in the shelter was palpable, heavy with adrenaline, anger, and from the four men present, fear. Not fear of the attack outside, but fear of the women with whom they shared the bunker. Robin and Giles were re-reading the dream journals, again. Andrew was fiddling with the comm-station, occasionally pulling in snippets of the battle overhead. Xander and Dawn, the only non-slayer female in the shelter, were circulating among the girls, trying to ease the edge off their friends without getting killed by mistake.

The rumble of the battle on the surface ebbed and flowed. Sometimes it was close enough to hear through the sealed doors, other times it was a constant, low vibration with irregular thuds coming through the surrounding rock and earth. Most annoyingly, any time someone managed to get comfortable there would come a sudden shock that would bounce everyone several inches from where they had been sitting.

“Hey,” Andrew announced. “Things should start to quiet down. The SDF-1 just launched again, and this time she didn't crash back down immediately.”

“Does that mean we can get out of this tin can?” Rona groused.

“No!” Buffy, Giles and Faith all yelled.

“Jeesh,” Rona groaned. “I was just asking. I didn't need it in three part harmony.”

“Yeah Giles, the bass was a bit flat.” Vi chimed in. “You three should rehearse more.”

“Oh dear,” Xander affected a Giles accent. “Whatever happened to the quiet Vi?”

Laughter came from several corners of the shelter. 

Faith snickered and replied. “Snark 101 classes with Buffy.” 

Buffy looked up from the video monitor that Andrew had gotten working. “You're not laying that one on me.”

“Too late B. Already have.”

“Faith, three words. Pot. Kettle. Black.”

When she turned back to the monitor, Buffy froze, staring at the figures on the screen. One looked like an egg mating with one of the two legged walkers from the Star Wars films. The other figure was generally humanoid, about fifty feet tall (as judged by the building it was using for cover) and if it were all black, would have been straight out of the dream that had sent them here. Her stifled exclamation soon drew the entire room to jockey for a clear view.

Over the course of several minutes, the pod thing and the robot exchanged fire.

“Why does it have wings on its back?” Dawn piped up.

Buffy glanced down at her sister sitting lotus style on the floor. “No idea. How'd you worm your way up front anyway?”

The robot dove out of the cover of the building, taking up a prone position behind an overturned bus. Leveling its rifle it shot out the knees on the egg walker, causing it to tumble over backwards.

Dawn held up the bag she was holding. “Popcorn? Extra buttery!”

Buffy looked around at the group sharing bags of popcorn. “What, you all think this is a movie?”

Xander chose that particular moment to dim the lights. “Hey Andrew, is this cooler than Star Trek?”

Andrew sat staring at the screen, mouth open. He could barely nod.

“Eww,” one of the girls whispered. “He's drooling.”

His right wrist immediately shot to his lips. “Am not!” He shouted over the laughter.

“Maybe not,” Kennedy crowed. “But you thought you were.” 

On the screen, the robot climbed back to its feet then folded itself into a two-legged half-plane.

“Holy crap!” “Well Dawnie, we know what the wings are for now.” “Can you believe.” “Hey that looks kinda like those new Veritechs.” “Have you noticed how cute the Skull Squadron commander is?” “Fokker?!? Arrogant ass, his seconds pretty cool though.” The sudden babble was cut off by a sharp knock.

Thud. “I want one.” Thud. “I want one.” Thud. “I want one.”

“Andrew. Stop it.”

“But?”

“It's your forehead, but it's my table.” Xander answered.

Jets fired from the feet of the transformed machine and it skated off through the streets looking for more of the enemy. Overhead, a pair of Valkyrie fighters flew off in the same direction where they were shortly joined by a third rising from behind the rubble.

Thud. “I want one.” Thud. “I want one.” Thud. “I want one.”

“Xander! Not on the Hoyle's Demonological Compendium.”

“Uh, sorry Giles.”

Dawn's shrill scream refocused everyone on the monitor where the egg-walker had apparently hatched. Standing beside the pod was a man at least as tall as the robot that had left the scene. His skin was greenish gray and he was wearing an olive uniform. Otherwise he looked human. Reaching into the wreck, the giant levered free one of the weapons, slung it over his back like a rifle and began to walk down the street in the direction the fighters had gone.

Buffy stared at the now still monitor, her spine crawling as if she had been the one piloting the robot. Her slayer-sense crying out that this was the face of her new enemy.

_Engine Room – SDF-1_

“Minor damage on the port-side power couplings. We took some dings when Armor Ten's reactor went critical. Repair teams are already on site.”

Chief Engineer Lang nodded to the Lieutenant who brought the report. It had not been his intention to serve aboard the battle-fortress in a combat capacity. Originally he had planned to train an engineer to operate and maintain the systems during the shakedown process so he could dedicate himself to delving deeper into the secrets of protoculture. Now that looked like an impossibility. UNSpacy Command was notoriously stingy about valuable resources, and as he had not yet trained that replacement, his presence here was about as valuable as military resources could get.

_“Ready the fold system for a jump to Lunar farside.”_ Claudia Grant's voice came over the Engineering speakers. _“Jump to occur upon my signal. Acknowledge.”_

Lang turned to stare through the ceiling towards the ships bridge. “Are they nuts?” He muttered.

Willow looked up from her station and met his eyes briefly. They had discussed the theory of the hyperspace fold system and they believed that they had rebuilt it properly but without careful testing they had no idea what would really happen. He keyed the mic. “Acknowledged.”

“What the hell are those idiots thinking?” One of the technicians shouted.

“BELAY THAT NONSENSE!” Oh well, if they were going to insist he be a chief engineer instead of a scientist, then he had better start living the part. 

“You heard the bridge command. We are in a combat situation.” Lang paused to take a deep breath. “No! We are not ready. We didn't chose this fight, it came to us. The Captain would not order risky or untested maneuvers without a valid reason. These are aliens we are dealing with and the survival of our planet is what is now at stake.”

The robotechnologist realized that his words were disjointed, bordering on babbling. Movement on the far side of the room drew his attention back to Dr. Rosenberg. She had stood up from her station and snapped to attention. Something in her eyes spoke to him over the distance and he nodded in her direction. For a moment, he thought her eyes had flashed black. “Your orders Sir?” She asked crisply.

“Ready the fold system for jump to Lunar farside.”

“Aye Sir!” She snapped and then began shouting orders to the other techs. “Beta team! Route main power to the fold system. Louise, stay on thruster controls. Burton! Launch program 37 gamma on the main engineering computers. Lets move people! I have a girlfriend down there to protect!”

Lang chuckled. He had met Kennedy on several social occasions and he was pretty sure that Willow did not get to throw that line around her often. Walking up to his assistant amid the ensuing controlled chaos he noted now calmly she was controlling the other engineers.

“Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do or die,” she whispered.

“Tennyson eh.” He replied. “Are you certain we want 37 gamma?”

She nodded then sighed. “I don't _want_ any of them. 37 gamma is the one we best understand. At least with that program we shouldn't have any major surprises. None of the other programs have been evaluated to anywhere near gamma's level. I just hope we can stay ahead of it while it runs live.”

“If it helps, I agree with your call. For the same reasons.” He looked at the monitors showing the power build up in the fold engines. “Lets buffer the program and put Burton's team on console with your team on the controls. Hopefully they can call the wobblies fast enough for your team to adjust.”

“Aye Sir.” Suddenly she looked nervous. “I...ah. I hope I didn't steal your thunder.”

“Listen Rosenberg. Three hours ago, we all thought of ourselves as civilian scientists who'd agreed to join up so we could play with the cool toys. Officially, you're my second.” He paused, giving her a thoughtful look. “You sounded like you've done this before.”

“Apocalyptic doom?” She grinned. “I can neither confirm nor deny that... but yeah. As one of the girls I hang out with would say: _This ain't mah first rodeo.”_

The energies released by the spacefold drive were not limited to the basic four known dimensions. Willow had worked with Doctor Lang to develop a control interface that attempted to isolate, track and modify each of the various dimensional powerwaves. To help visuallize, she had color coded the waves. Each of member of her team sat console on a particular band. Her own console was configured for the violet bands where the reflex energies interacted with what she had come to call aether, or the source field for magic.

“Transient!”

Willow's eyes never left her control readouts.“Talk to me Burton!”

“External energy spike. Red band with some bleedover.”

That particular band represented gravitational effects. An uncontrolled spike there could send them light years off course. “Ann, prepare to isolate and compensate.”

“On it boss.”

The wave stabilized and the team resumed the buildup to the jump. Heavy subsonic rumbles now permeated the atmosphere of the engineering control room. Glare shields had been closed over the fold drive inspection ports and still the power continued to build.

Willow glanced at her secondary monitor displaying the combined fields. Per the parameters as they understood them, everything was in readiness for the quarter-million mile jump. “Looks like we're ready Emil.”

_Watchers Council Shelter_

Buffy and Faith were re-watching the battle that Andrew had recorded, analyzing the abilities of both machines. She still did not have any idea how the pilots of the transformable machines did what they did, but she was developing a very strong itch to try one out.

“Look how natural the movement is when the machine dives for cover behind the bus.” Faith pointed out. “You don't do that with levers and pulleys.”

The flash of light that chose that moment to push through the sealed and windowless, underground room was swiftly followed by an ear-piercing shriek.

Buffy spun in place to find her sister hovering three feet off the floor glowing a bright, pulsing green with her limbs twitching in pain. At each pulse of the green light emanating from within her, Dawn's body was wracked with excruciating pain. Already, her face had taken on the rictus of a semi-permanent, soundless wail. Her arms were thrown backward as waves of green light began to explode from her chest, disappearing through the thick, stone ceiling of the bunker.

Just when Buffy thought things could not get worse, a rapid sequence of bright white flashes returned from the direction the green ones had gone. Each slamming into Dawn's suspended form. Almost quicker than she could blink, green flashes rocketed back out of Dawn's chest again.

“Andrew!” Giles yelled. “Shield spell!”

The two men swiftly began chanting in latin, attempting to put a barrier between Dawn and whatever she was linked with.

_Engine Room – SDF-1_

_“Execute hyperspace fold jump.”_

Two thousand feet above Macross Island, poorly understood reflex energies were unleashed to rip open the fabric of reality. The first effect was the establishment of a fold-sphere perimeter. This field defined the total area that would be shifted through hyperspace to the destination. Having no experience with the technology, the crew had no idea that the drives of the SDF-1 were actually sized to move much larger objects through space. 

Due to damage suffered in the crash, the drive tuning had reset to its default maximum configuration. This resulted in a fold-sphere with a five mile radius. Being nearly centered above Macross Island at the time, the field encompassed not only the entire island, but a fair amount of the surrounding ocean as well. The hole that was left by humanity's first attempt at a hyperspace fold created a new deepest point in the worlds oceans. 

At the bottom of the sphere, the magma chamber that supported the island was breached. As the shift occurred, terratons of cold ocean water collapsed inward against outward exploding molten rock and gasses. The resulting conflagration made Krakatoa look like a Fourth of July sparkler. And all of that was before the global effects of the following tsunami.

“Transient!” Burton shouted. “Red spike!”

Lang leaned toward the monitors. “What do we have?”

“Massive gravity spike juicing the window.” Willow answered. “Attempting to compensate.”

Fingers flew over the keyboards as Willow and her team tried to stay ahead of the constantly fluctuating energy wave. Every change seemed to make the energies redouble, the feedback creating an exponential growth in the power curve with each bounce between the fold-drives and the gravitational mass of the planet.

Lang and Rosenberg came to terrifying realization at the same moment, the system was about to go completely out of control. As they opened their mouths to shout out the abort command, the final coffin nail was driven home.

“HETERODYNE!” Burton screamed. “Heterodyne spike across both blue and yellow curves.

“Blue AND yellow?!?!” Willow yelled as Doctor Lang screamed “ABORT FOLD!”

But it was already too late, the SDF-1, Macross Island and a not insignificant chunk of earth, ocean and atmosphere rolled up within its own schwartzchild radius and winked out of reality.

_Watcher's Council Shelter_

Panic and fear reigned in the bunker. Whatever was feeding off the signature energy that was an essential part of the fabric that defined the being known as Dawn Summers was killing her. Each wash of energy came faster and more violent. She had ceased to scream as the two warlocks attempted to shield her from the barrage.

Normally, interrupting a wizard in the midst of such complex spells as Giles and Andrew were attempting was a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Not that Buffy had ever cared for the appropriate forms for dealing with the arcane.

Reaching out, she grabbed her watcher's shoulder. “Giles, it's killing her.” Her eyes hardened. “Make. It. Go. Away!”

Without breaking his chant, the eldest resident of the shelter nodded. His fingers twined with hers and she suddenly felt the power of the slayer surge through the connection. Giles' chant changed, shifting from the metronomic pattern of the shield spell to something far more harsh and visceral. His voice heavily laced with inhuman frickatives, the new spell lashed out at the source of the power assaulting Dawn. The words flashing through the aether like sword thrust, parrying the incoming waves and slicing away at those energies' connections to reality. With an inhuman shout, he stabbed outward, cutting away the cancerous energy and banishing it from existence.

Giles, Buffy and Dawn all collapsed, blissfully unaware as the SDF-1 and Macross Island exploded back into reality beyond the orbit of Pluto.


	4. Shelter

**_Shelter_ **

> Slayers were not meant to sit still in the face of danger. The psychological, physical and biochemical changes that made them who they had become resulted in a group of women who made a biker bar full of testosterone crazed men look like a Sunday knitting circle. Enforce inactivity by locking ten of them up in an underground bunker while a war was being fought outside their door and woe betide any being who dared to pull their triggers.
> 
> _\- First Rule: Unit History of the 998 Squadron_

_Macross Island Civilian Shelter Three_

Lanaya was beyond second thoughts. In fact, she was now so scared that she was certain she was beyond 12th or 13th thoughts. She knew her family had headed to Shelter One as soon as the civil defense sirens sounded, but her friends had said that they were planning to party in Shelter Three until the emergency was lifted. All the kids who thought they were cool or wanted to be so were planning on being there.

Drugs, booze, music, sex, the back corner of the shelter had been declared an off limits zone for the prudish adults, who were doing their best to ignore the lewd behavior, funky light show and harsh, pulsing beat of the party. The planners had chosen their site well. Shelter Three had the smallest police presence of any of the civil defense shelters, which meant that the security people felt it was wiser to keep the party from spreading and let it wind down on its own rather than attempt to put an end to it and possibly cause a riot.

The party zone backed up against one of the corridors that lead to the supply caverns, which enabled the partiers who wished to pair off the ability to find someplace a bit more private. Lanaya'd had eyes only for Boma for several weeks now. The fact that he had noticed her too seemed to be the perfect combination. They had danced and drank and smoked. With her skin tingling, she had kissed him. Somehow, the two of them had found themselves half-undressed in one of the storage closets.

In her mind altered state, Lanaya blinked as Boma seemed to grow a second head. First she noticed the harsh, yellow eyes atop this new face. Then she blinked, because the other head seemed to be all violent wrinkles. Just as Boma thrust himself forward the mouth on the other head opened to reveal long, razor sharp teeth. Still, caught up in the moment, she did not realize what was happening until those teeth sank into her partner's throat, splashing her with blood as the creature fed.

With a shriek, she backpedaled away from the thrashing pair. Part of her mind screaming 'vampire' while another part attempted to rationalize what she had just seen as a 'bad trip' from the drugs she had ingested. Either way, the debate did not halt her flight reflex from engaging, though the state of her clothes did hamper her escape, at least until she stopped trying to pull her leggings back up and kicked them free of her ankles.

Maniacal laughter followed her as she ran deeper into the storage caverns.

“Come, my tasty morsel, there is no way out of these caverns. Morgan does not like to play with his food.”

Whimpering, Lanaya backed further into the shadows, and bumped up against a pair of legs. A cold hand quickly clamped over her mouth as a voice hissed in her ear. “Quiet. You know what Morgan is?”

Lanaya nodded.

“I'm Beth,” the voice whispered. “I can protect you from him.”

The girl slumped against her new friend and muttered thank you through the quieting hand.

Beth wrapped her other arm around Lanaya's chest and pulled her tight to her own body. “After all, you're mine now.”

Beth's hair brushed against Lanaya's cheek and in the darkness she never saw the change come over the other girl's features as Beth's teeth sank into her throat.

_Kuiper Belt – Beyond Pluto Orbit_

The half-sphere of earth and water containing Macross Island did not have sufficient mass to exert more than a small amount of gravitational pull on the people and objects in the shelters. As a result, numerous systems that were designed for a benign one-g environment now failed to work. Most notably, water and waste handling systems that relied on the pull of gravity to create pressure and flow. While it was possible to draw drinking water from the stored supplies, macro functions like showers and toilets were unable to function. Much to the disgust of the dozen or so women and four men, the last shelter to be emptied was the one housing the International Watcher's Council contingent.

From the first moment of Dawn's scream, things in the shelter had gone seriously down hill. To begin with, gravity in the shelter had gone haywire. Dawn had bounced off the ceiling, a stack of crates, Vi and Kennedy. Buffy and Giles had bounced off the floor, Andrew, and one of the crates Dawn had hit before Faith managed to snag them out of the air. Conservation of momentum meant that each non-secured object was also set in motion. Luckily, the masses involved soon canceled out.

Just as Giles and Buffy were beginning to come around, the SDF-1 crashed back into the island. The violent impact jarring loose anything that was not secured. The shelter was soon a near perfect case study in Brownian motion, with crates, people, books and furniture all randomly colliding and redirecting about the space.

_“This is SDF-1 to all Macross Island shelters,” the civil defense speakers blared to life. “Initiate chemical/biological lock-down protocols. Do not attempt to open doors or vents to the outside until specifically instructed.”_

_Day Two_

_Dawn has still not awakened, though judging by her snoring, it's now because she is asleep, and not because some strange energy knocked her unconscious. We've tried to get the girls to settle down, perhaps even sleep some. After the general announcement over the Civil Defense network, our shelter was contacted directly by someone aboard the SDF-1. After explaining what they thought happened, they informed us of the priority status for evacuating each shelter. Unfortunately, I appear to have planned too well. Our supply status makes us tail-end charlie for evac. So the girls, Giles, Robin, Andrew and I are stuck here for at least 7 to 10 days. I wonder if any of us..._

“I want 20 on Faith killing Robin on day five.” Vi's whisper yanked Xander out of his journal.

“Why those two?” Rona asked while scribbling the wager on her notepad.

Vi stiffled a snort. “If they're not boinking like bunnies they can't stand each other. You see anywhere private for the two of them to cha-cha in here?”

“When has a lack of privacy ever stopped her?”

“Point.”

Xander turned back to his journal. A sad smile on his face. _Bunnies._

_Day Four_

Dawn was sick and tired of laying in bed. Buffy, Giles and Xander had all conspired to keep her confined to her sleeping bag for the last day and a half. Really, she felt fine! After all, she was 24, not 14! Just because she'd gone through the magical equivalent of a barrel ride over Niagra Falls

To encourage everyone to rest to conserve resources and minimize the potential for conflict in the limited space, Xander had turned off most of the shelter's lighting. Light snores surrounded her, indicating that at least some of the others were actually sleeping. She closed her eyes again, trying to will herself to return to sleep.

With a quiet grump, she gave up. She'd been confined to bed for four days and now her body needed to be doing something. Quietly, she sat up and pealed herself out of the sleeping bag. Reaching up, she grabbed one of the ropes that had been strung about the shelter and began moving toward the dim light spilling from behind the curtains that were erected around the computer workstation. Slipping into the room, she blinked and paused to let her eyes adjust. In the small space, Xander was sleeping with his head propped on the desk. With a sigh, she slipped into the chair beside him, bumping the table lightly as she did so.

“Muhhha,” Xander stirred. “Oh, hi Dawn. Should you be up?”

Dawn cocked her head in 'wrong question idiot' look number five. “Should you be asleep?”

“Uh.”

“Tell you what. You go rack out, I'll take the comm watch. I can't sleep anyway, may as well be useful.”

“I shouldn't, but...” Xander yawned big, catching himself by surprise.

“Go, shoo.” Dawn plastered a stern look on her face. “Anything happens, I'll wake Buffy and Giles.”

Xander smiled and his head drifted toward the table.

“Not here,” she hissed. “Bed. Now mister!”

_Day Six_

“I did not eat YOUR last box of Choco Munchies!” Leah's screech sliced through the bunker.

“Yes you DID!” LuAnn's fierce response was punctuated by her hand slapping down on top of one of the seed crates, splintering the wood. “I found the box crumpled under your bed!”

Giles and Robin moved to position themselves between the two youngest slayers. “Girls...”

_Day Seven_

The tap of a key cut off the discordant noise from the workstation, and a cultured British voice spoke into the microphone. “Shelter 27.” The blink of the little blue light beside the webcam drew his eyes upward.

_“Oh Goddess! Giles, what happened?”_

Heavily bandaged with his left arm in a splint and stitches closing a long gash above his right eyebrow, Giles had been sitting at the desk when the trill of the incoming call rang from the computer's speakers. “Willow! It is good to see you. We have all been concerned about you.”

The redhead on the screen frowned at him. _“Giiiles...”_

Faith stuck her head through the curtain behind the watcher. “Hi Red! I thought I heard your voice.” Her head disappeared and her voice was heard rousing the rest of the shelter's residents.

Willow put on her serious face. _“Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to get the story from everyone else?”_

Giles sighed and started cleaning his glasses, holding them with his broken arm while wiping them with his good hand. “Really Willow, there is nothing to tell. A couple of the girls had a disagreement. Robin and I stepped in to separate them...”

“... and _someone_ forgot that negligible gravity and getting between fighting slayers does not make a good combination.” Buffy leaned over the Englishman's shoulder. “Great to see you Wills.”

_“You too Buffy. Hey, Command said to pass on that they have to clear some debris before they can get you out, but it shouldn't be too much longer.”_

Dawn slipped into the room and took up position over Giles' other shoulder and waved. “Hi Willow. We've been worried. Why haven't you called before?”

_“Dawn!”_ The wiccan robotechnologist was becoming giddy. _“Been busy busy! After the jump, my team was the one rigging power lines from the ship to keep the Macross city grid up so the shelters weren't relying on batteries.”_

“Nice work Wills!” Xander shouted as he pulled the curtains back so the rest of the room could see and hear. A chorus of agreement from the room chimed in.

On the monitor, Willow blushed noticeably. _“For the last several days we've been trying to figure out why our hyperspace fold brought us here instead of the far side of the moon like we intended. And also why our fold-drives just up and disappeared. Its been a really...”_

Giles felt Dawn's hand clench hard on his shoulder as Willow gushed on about the issues she'd been dealing with.

_“...and there was this weird energy spike in the yellow and blue spectra. None of us know what caused it.”_

“Uh Willow?”

_“I'm babbling again.”_

A rumble of amusement floated from behind the three at the workstation.

“Yes, but did you say yellow and blue?” Dawn asked.

_“Yep?”_

Dawn looked at her sister, then Giles, then at the monitor. “Willow, don't yellow and blue make green?”

The face on the screen suddenly paled. Even her bright red hair seemed to have the color drain out of it as her hands shot up to cover her mouth. _“CRAP!”_

_Kuiper Belt – Beyond Pluto Orbit_

Recovery of the Macross Island survivors had taken nearly two weeks. Luckily, civilian casualties had been light. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of the military ground personnel from the base, most of whom had been working in the open to repair damage to the airfield at the time of the spacefold. The below deck crews of the carriers DEADALUS and PROMETHIUS had survived due to the ships being sealed for combat, but as with the airbase, their deck crews were decimated.


	5. Moving In

_**Moving In** _

> No one understands just how hard it was to do what the people of Macross City and the crew of the SDF-1 accomplished in the days immediately following the disaster. Somehow, people who should have crumbled under the stresses of having their entire lives destroyed rose up and with one voice blew raspberries in the face of fate, fatalism and the Powers That Be. 
> 
> You know, as a survivor of Sunnydale, that is probably the absolute coolest part of all this. Not the machines, or the aliens but the people. Humans proving that heart is the most vital force we can possess.
> 
> _\- Pass the Twinkies: The Autobiography of Xander Harris_

_SDF-1 Unassigned Veritech Squadron Ready Room_

Near the periphery of the space battle-fortress, close to the main hangar-bay airlocks, the Macross City Recovery Committee buzzed like a kicked beehive. Many voices rumbled through the open space drowning out the individual conversations to the casual observer. Around a table in a conference room off to one side, the Mayor, City Manager, Captain Gloval, engineering personnel and people representing the various Macross Island construction companies were gathered.

“It's been 9 days since we arrived here,” the City Manager reported. “To date we have rescued 90% of our citizenry, or roughly 70,000 people from the various shelters and transferred them to temporary quarters aboard ship. Per agreement with SPACY personnel, namely Captain Gloval, the conversion of the longitudinal core bays of the ship into habitable volume containing arable land and space to construct additional habitations for the citizens is underway.”

“Excellent, excellent.” The Mayor interjected. 

With a nod to the Mayor, the City Manager continued. “With the help of SPACY personnel and equipment, we have already begun moving soil from undeveloped parts of the island into the ship. By end of the day, we should have a two to four foot packed base in the assigned agricultural compartments and also in the designated park areas.”

“What about habitations? If the civilians stay in barracks conditions too long, we're going to start having serious security issues.” The Chief of Police inquired.

“That's a bit more problematical,” the head of the islands largest construction firm answered.

“How so?”

“In normal construction, one would bring in raw supplies, bricks, lumber, sheetrock, pipe, wiring, etcetera.” He shrugged. “You would then construct your buildings using these materials. Such construction taking anywhere from several days to several months depending on the building. Unfortunately, we have no source of raw materials from which to begin this construction.”

The Mayor spun to face the builder. “What? We have an entire city of materials! Why not use what is there?”

“I'm afraid it is not that simple. To make use of those materials, we would need to disassemble those structures with even more care than that with which we build them. Otherwise, we will damage or destroy the very materials we are seeking to make use of. It is possible, but it means that it will take months of deconstruction before we can even begin to construct new buildings in the ship.”

“Months?” Gloval glowered around the table. “Months are something we do not have. We cannot remain here that long, or have you forgotten that the Earth was under attack. Without the fold drives it is going to take us a year to get back, assuming that our world is not wiped out by these aliens in the meantime. This also means that if they choose to pursue us, we have no way to escape. I'm sorry, but I cannot tie this ship down here that long. We expect our own salvage of the airbase, research center, and naval vessels to be completed in roughly two more weeks. That is all the time I can give you.”

“TWO WEEKS!!!” Roobas and rumbles spread through the room. “No way in hell!” “What about the food stores?” “We need to harvest all the fresh water to support the population!”

In the intervening chaos, a tall, muscular, young man with an eye-patch over his left eye worked his way through the crowd to a shock of red hair standing amongst the engineering representatives. A squeal and hug followed by quick, intense conversation between the two went virtually unnoticed.

“SILENCE!” The Mayor's shout brought momentary relief to the cacophony. “The Captain has his reasons for the time limit and wasting the time we do have trying to change his mind is a poor use of our most limited resource. We need options, not animosity.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor?” The dark-haired construction worker stepped forward. “I might have an idea or two.”

The magnate in the suit looked down his nose at the young man and sniffed. “Young man, are you even old enough to grasp the gravity of this situation.”

“Gravity is exactly what I'm grasping at in this situation,” he chuckled. Turning to face the Mayor, he nodded. “My name's Xander Harris, and if I could just get a couple clarifications from the command and engineering staff, I think we can speed things up significantly.”

The Captain looked at the Mayor and then at Xander. “You have our attention Mr. Harris.”

Xander flinched at the formal address but plowed forward. “It is my understanding that in addition to the bays we've been assigned, there are two additional bays of similar dimensions that are mostly empty?”

Gloval looked thoughtful. “That is correct, but their services are unfinished and they are not considered to be habitable.”

“Not a problem for what I have in mind.” Xander looked over his shoulder at the engineering team. “Wills, what's the gravity of the island?”

“Negligible, Xander.”

“How negligible?”

“I wouldn't want allergies. A sneeze would put you in orbit.”

With a serious face, Xander jumped up and down beside the table. “So, by implication, the fact that I didn't just hit the ceiling means that the ship is generating artificial gravity?”

“That would be correct,” Gloval answered.

“And this gravity can be turned down, or even off?”

Willow turned to the other engineers who were with her. After a swift and intense conversation, she turned back to the room. “Gravity can be modified either shipwide or locally by modules across a broad range.”

Xander smiled. In that case, here is what I propose.

_Macross City, Macross Island, Kuiper Belt_

Within an hour of Xander's proposal, Veritech teams in Battloid mode were moving through the city using their head-lasers to slice relatively intact buildings free of their foundations. They would then pass them off to squads who would carry them to the SDF-1's main airlocks where they would be inspected and then passed off to the construction crews inside the ship who would either shift them manually or transport them by crane to designated neighborhoods.

Buildings were being lifted into place and held while engineers fashioned new foundations for them using scrap steel welded to the ship's deck plating. The plan was to keep the original Macross City neighborhoods as intact as possible, allowing the residents to move back into their homes. Battle damage to some structures made this impossible to fully achieve, but most residents were welcoming of those who found their homes transplanted into their midst.

Xander lead a team of inspectors checking each building as it was brought aboard, designating it as habitable, repairable or salvage. The two extra bays had been designated respectively for salvage or repair and buildings not sent immediately to one of the neighborhoods were transferred there where teams set to work deconstructing and reconstructing the buildings. Families were allowed to send representatives to those bays to identify personal effects to be recovered and stored pending availability of new housing.

Work progressed swiftly and by the end of the second day, one of the modules, a neighborhood centered around the Nyan Nyan Chinese restaurant was completed, its gravity was turned up slowly to allow the buildings to settle gently to their new foundations. The resident's were located and the first neighborhood was opened for habitation. The City Manager, Mayor and Captain Gloval, impressed with the simplicity and effectiveness of 'The Harris Plan' insisted that Xander cut the ribbon on the first completed neighborhood later that afternoon. In spite of how busy he was with the ongoing inspections, Xander stood beside the Mayor on the platform when he addressed the residents and welcomed them back to their new/old homes. 

One side benefit of this was that Xander was never allowed to pay for dinner at the Nyan Nyan ever again.

_Five Light Years from Earth toward Barnard's Star_

“Lord Breetai, I'm afraid I do not understand this.”

The Zentradi fleet commander felt a disturbing shiver run down his spine. The bridge lighting reflected off the metal plate covering his right eye and temple as he looked down at his adviser with his good eye. The deformity that had left his key adviser too small and weak to become a power in the physical and militaristic Zentradi culture had also gifted him with one of the most brilliant minds in the galaxy. A mind some considered second only to Zor's flower-of-life imbued intellect. That he would admit to not understanding something, even to his life-long friend Breetai...

“We have their power readings! We have the mass of the planet! We know the direction the fold took them!” The scientist Exedore stabbed his finger toward the viewscreen. “Every calculation says they should be right here!”

“Yet they are not,” the commander answered thoughtfully. “There is something we are missing. Is it possible we have not gone far enough?”

“No, my Lord. We would have detected the distortion of their passage. Somehow Zor's battlefortress must have dropped from fold early.”

“But where?”

“Unknown, Lord Breetai.” Exedore stared at the star charts on the monitors. “I'm afraid we must begin searching back towards the Micronian planet until we locate them.” 

“Give the order to the fleet. Spread out across the projected path and begin moving back towards the Micronian's system in?” The commander looked at his advisor.

“I recommend one-tenth light year jumps.”

“Very well. Plot our course and execute the first fold.”

_Abandoned Corridors Beneath Macross City_

“I'm huuungry,” Boma whined.

Beth turned, growling at Morgan's pansy-assed childe. “Silence fledgling.”

“But we've had no blood in days. Besides, you're not my sire.”

“No, I'm not.” She poured every ounce of disdain possible in to the words as she turned to her own childe. Dear Lanaya who worshiped the ground upon which she and Morgan walked. Lanaya, who had reveled in the dark dance that had quietly swelled their numbers in the shelter while her one-time boyfriend had become the whiny leader of their malcontent faction.

“Fool,” Lanaya sneered. “What part of _'we saw the slayers'_ did you fail to understand?”

Beth smiled. The girl she had sired would be an excellent lieutenant. She could see the scheming and plotting roiling behind her eyes even as the blood hunger warred for control. Vampires who failed to control the hunger died early. Vampires who controlled their hunger became Masters.

“To have the chance to feed, I can take them!”

“You?!?” Lanaya snarked.

Boma looked around, his eyes landing on his fellow malcontents before locking on Beth, Lanaya and the stoic Morgan. “WE can take them!”

Morgan stood, unmoving, between the malcontents, his mate and her favorite. His back to Boma, as it had been sense the confrontation had begun. Beth looked at him, the question in her expression obvious. Considering for a moment the outcomes he flicked his eyes at her in acquiescence.

Before she could move, however, his eyes pinned themselves to her again, clearly telling her no. With a glance, he made it clear that it was time for Lanaya to prove herself. If she was going to be their lieutenant, she would have to hold the respect of the nest. Morgan's unspoken instructions were clear.

Feral grin gracing her demonic visage, Lanaya lunged at her former lover, separating the head from his body faster than his deluded mind could react to her movement. The spray of dust marking his demise flying back onto the whiners who he had counted on to help usurp their sire's authority.

“Tell them,” Morgan growled. His back still facing the nest.

Lanaya subsumed her demonic features as she basked in the power of the other's fear of her. “Our prey has defenders. To swell our numbers and feed the nest we must move with great care. Attack without our leave and we will dust you ourselves.”

_SDF-1 Kuiper Belt_

Two weeks to the day after the meeting in the hangar-bay the space battle-fortress turned away from the former piece of earth it had hovered over for the last month. Every scrap of salvageable material possible having been stuffed into any open space aboard ship. Over 75,000 survivors of the city, ships, and the SDF-1 crew looked to the monitors that were focused on the receding lump of rock and ice.

In Bay Three, agronomists were already transplanting the first sprouts from the Council's seeds to the prepared fields. In Bay's Four and Five, work continued on deconstructing and reconstructing buildings for the city in Bay's One and Two.

Darkness swallowed the familiar lump of home that had followed them to this lonely place. Joy and sorrow warred within their hearts. They were simultaneously leaving and going home. In spite of the weirdly familiar surroundings, everything had changed.

And yet...

_Watcher's Council Headquarters_

The buzz in the Council cafeteria had resumed its usual electric hum. Rumors circulated among the girls faster than the slayers could go through food. 

“Did you hear that the Nyan Nyan is reopening?” “Seriously, the Mayor announced that the Miss Macross competition is back on!” “What do you mean we have to ration our food?” “Will you STOP daydreaming about that pilot Vi!” “No we do NOT have any ChocoMunchies left!” “I swear I got a vamp-vibe in Bay One, District Three this morning.”

“WHAT!?!” Giles' incredulous voice silenced the room.

Questions rocketed back and forth around the room and just like that, life in the Council suddenly snapped back to normal. There would be patrols, and not just at night, since all the lighting in the ship was artificial. There would be vamps to stake and unsuspecting civilians to protect. Xander found himself musing about what kind of trouble a nest of vamps could cause on a spaceship and Andrew was roundly pummeled upon voicing the thought that they at least couldn't do anything apocalypty this far from a Hellmouth.

Later that evening, in her room, Dawn pulled an official looking letter out of the drawer on her end table. After staring at it for several minutes a maniacal smile lit up her face. 

“So, it's still on,” she smiled. “Buffy's SO gonna FREAK!”


	6. Encounters in the Dark

**_Encounters in the Dark_ **

_

> _Confluences. Who would have thought that we would have met our ancient enemy and the boy who would become one of humanity's great heroes on the same day. All because one of Xander's construction trucks fell through a weak spot in the deck._
> 
> _-Diary of a Slayer in the Stars_

_

_SDF-1 Main Engineering_

Emil Lang looked slowly around the table, taking in the faces of his engineering team leads. For two weeks after the disastrous fold they had focused solely on understanding what had happened to the hyperspace drives. Once they had come out of their self-imposed exile, the teams had immediately been drawn into the massive effort to salvage the island of every usable material. In the midst of the insanity something very important had been overlooked. With the ship now underway for home the sudden realization that they were nearly defenseless had been the catalyst for this meeting.

“Alright,” the German robotechnologist massaged the bridge of his nose. “The main cannon's power conduits were routed through the fold drives. A highly efficient design that unfortunately has lead to our current problem. Ms. Carter, would you care to report?”

Louise swallowed hard. “As we are all aware, channeling the reflex energies requires that the power conduits have certain properties that are currently beyond the capabilities of human science to reproduce. We did not feel that this would be a problem because we felt that we had found sufficient spares aboard the ship. Unfortunately, many of these spares were ordered removed to the Alaska base for research and special projects. At the time we did not feel that to be an issue as we felt that the ship would easily be able to return to Earth should we require replacement. As a result, our limited on-hand spares are insufficient to bridge the missing segment where the fold drives were located.”

“So we are currently unable to connect the main cannon to the reflex furnace.” Lang sighed. “Do we have any further options?”

An almost inaudible throat clearing drew Emil's attention to his top assistant. “Ms. Rosenberg?”

“Sir?” The squeak in her answer caused a chuckle to round the table. Lang's own smile and shake of his head soon followed. He had come to the conclusion that she did such things intentionally as a means of releasing a room's tension. He cocked his head in her direction as an embarrassed smile appeared on her face.

“One of my friends, Xander Harris is involved in the relocation of the city. As I am sure you all heard, there was a collapse in one of the completed neighborhoods and a pair of kids were rescued from a closed off section that they'd somehow entered during the fighting. In their debrief, they mentioned coming across rooms of scrap materials. It is possible that there might be conduit segments among that scrap that we might be able to use. I'd like to recruit one of the kids to guide us to these store-rooms.”

“Approved, although I cannot release anyone to accompany you at this time.”

“Oh.” Willows face fell for a moment. “Would it be okay to bring in some of my friends to help?”

Lang looked over at her and nodded. If she wanted to get some alone time with Kennedy, he wasn't going to interfere.

“Frank? You were looking at other options?”

Burton looked up. “Yes sir. The most promising appears to be modular transformation...”

_Nyan Nyan Restaurant, Macross City, Bay Two_

Rick Hunter rolled out of bed with a groan and stumbled toward the shower. The sound of water running and a young girl singing elicited a second groan as he turned back to his room. Quickly dressing, he grabbed a washcloth and used it to scrub his teeth. Glancing at his watch he decided to head outside to meet up with the crew member and her friends that wanted him to guide them through the corridors beneath the city. Minmei. Minmei and her strange change in attitude since the rescue could keep singing in her shower. Rick was undecided if he still cared. He was pretty sure she no longer did.

He thought he was going to be early, but there was already a truck parked in front of the restaurant and a crew was coning off the access hatch that had been installed where the street had collapsed into the deck below. Recognizing the crew member who had asked him to be their guide he wandered over to the group at the back of the truck.

“Mr. Hunter. You're early,” the uniformed redhead reached for his arm.

“Ah, yes. Er.”

The girl laughed. “Willow. We spoke yesterday? Redhead? Robotechnologist? Crewmember?”

Rick felt his face heating.

A tall man with dark curly hair, a patch over his left eye and a large grin placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. “Wills, stop teasing the poor boy.”

“Teasing?” A Hispanic girl appeared over Willow's other shoulder. Her voice carrying strange and dangerously possessive overtones with the question.

“No teasing. Nope. Not me,” Willow chirped, waving several more people over. “Rick? Meet my friends Kennedy, Vi, Buffy, Rona, and Xander. They'll be joining us on today's expedition.”

Rick suddenly realized that except for Xander, everyone Willow had just introduced was an extremely attractive female. The heat in his face returned. “H h hi,” he stammered.

Xander's large hand landed on his shoulder. “They're people, Ricky. Just relax and remember, every single one of them can rip you in half if you upset them.”

“XANDER!” Willow snapped, her arms crossed. Did her hair just turn a shade darker? “Now who's the one teasing.”

“Right,” Rick answered, then punched the man's arm. “And the name is Rick!”

_Corridors Beneath Macross City Bay Two_

Once they were all gathered at the bottom of the shaft, Rick passed out copies of the map he had drawn during the twelve days he and Minmei had been trapped in the lower corridors.

“I'm not precisely certain what it is we are looking for, but these rooms were packed from floor to ceiling with crates and equipment,” the young man said while pointing at the indicated rooms in their widely separated locations. “This one is located beside a large airlock, so removal shouldn't be too difficult.”

Willow nodded and handed over printouts to the others. “This is the kind of conduit we are looking for. Rick will lead us to the largest room first. Buffy, if you, Xander, Vi and Rona will check it out while Rick leads Kennedy and I to the room nearest the airlock.”

Xander pulled out a pair of radios for each team. “Sorry I could only spring two free. We still have too many different projects going on. I've reserved channel 12 for us so we shouldn't have to deal with any useless chit-chat.”

Willow clipped a radio to her belt. “Thanks Xan.”

_Storage Bay Forty-Nine_

“Will, what about this?” Kennedy was holding up the lid on a large crate.

On the far side of the room still prying open another crate, the kid looked over at the two women as they studied the contents. Maybe these ladies could help him figure out the source of confusion he spent 12 days trapped in these corridors with.

The redhead, Willow, chose that moment to squeal loudly, bounce in place and then plant a passionate kiss on her Hispanic companion.

“On the other hand,” he muttered under his breath. “Maybe not.”

Turning back to his searching, Rick totally missed the girl's complete change of demeanor at the burst of static and talking from the radio on Willow's belt. He, however did not miss the sudden chill that came over the storeroom when Kennedy marched over to the door, closed it, locked it and then took position in front of it.

And where on earth did she come up with a sword?

_Outside Storage Bay Thirty-Seven_

The sound of voices drew the attention of the six fledglings. Through Lanaya, Morgan had given orders that a more secure nest should be found and until then, there was to be no hunting.

Of course nothing had been said about stumbling across a prepackaged meal deal in the corridors. They had been following the scent of several young women through the maze of passageways and now they could hear their voices coming through the open doorway at the end of the hall.

“Oh come-on Xan,” one of the voices spoke clearly. “Don't you think, if we cleaned this room out a bit it would make an awesome place for a rave?”

The bubbly red-head turned, seeing the six approaching the door, she struck a pose and in her best Mae West voice drawled “Well helloooo boooyys.”

The vampires all smiled at each other. Three tiny girls and only one male. This was going to be too easy.

None of them noticed the male slide over to the door, close and lock it.

_Inside Storage Bay Thirty-Seven_

Xander squeezed the button on the side of his handset. “Hey Wills, Vi and Rona have been a bit twitchy and now Buffy's even feeling it.”

“Vampires?” Willow's voice came from the radio speaker. _“Should we head back and link up?”_

“Negative.” Xander answered. “Buffy, Vi and Rona think we have it covered. Better we keep the kid in the dark about our kind of night-unlife.”

_“Understood. We're sealing the door and Ken's going on guard.”_

“We'll call when things are clear,” he answered. “Xander out.

The four huddled together around a small crate to lay out an impromptu plan. Xander re-clipped the radio to his belt and slipped out of the backpack he had lugged down from the workvan. Inside the bag was his standard watchers kit, which he swiftly began doling out to the girls. Holy Water, spare stakes, a short-sword for Rona and his trusty battle-ax with collapsible haft.

“What do you think?” Buffy asked, looking at the black girl and the petite red-head.

Rona thought for a second. “No less than four.”

“But no more than eight,” Vi whispered, keeping the planning quiet.

“Six it is then,” Xander murmured. “Newbs?”

The girls all nodded, even Buffy.

“So, what's the plan?”

Buffy grinned. “Vi's bait. Rona's the hammer. I'm the anvil.”

Xander hefted the ax to his shoulder. “What about me?”

“Lock the door and keep the mice in play.”

All three girls licked their lips. A motion, combined with expressions that Xander would have found most disturbing if he hadn't spent more than the last decade dealing with exactly such scenarios.

With plans in place Buffy started chirping about planning a party. The other two girls quickly joined in, sounding for all the world like a group of air-headed sorority chicks. Xander just shook his head, smirked and played along.

_In Front Of Nyan Nyan Restaurant, Macross City, Bay Two_

Kennedy was pissed off. Willow could feel the waves of anger rolling off her girlfriend without even having to look at her aura. Of course, it was understandable. After all, the other group got to tangle with a mess of fledgling vampires while she stood guard on a locked door and a civilian who, everyone (even her) agreed, must be kept in the dark about the supernatural.

Of course Willow was not very happy either. While she had found some of the required conduit, it was nowhere near enough to bridge the missing gap. They needed to come up with almost a thousand feet of it. Unfortunately, she had only found about a third of that in those store-rooms.

With Rick packed back off to his room in the restaurant, the team climbed into the van for the ride back to headquarters. As they pulled out Buffy shot a look over at Willow's paramour.

“Cheer up Kens.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Buffy bounced in her seat. “The mice were talkative!”

“Oh?” Kennedy tried to drag the word out and make it sound gruff, but curiosity caused a squeak at the end.

“How about a pair of master level vamps, a talented newb aaaand.” Buffy drug it out, waiting for the tightly wound slayer to bite.

Kennedy fought it. Willow could see it in her shoulders, but the morsel dangling on the hook was too tasty and the alpha predator was too skilled in teasing her rivals.

“Gah!” Kennedy broke. “And what!”

“The location of their current nest?”

Willow watched grins break out on the other girl's faces as Xander began singing _“A hunting we we will go... a hunting we will go...”_

_Overlook Park, Macross City, Bay One – Several Days Later_

With the day-cycle floods turned off, one could almost imagine that the cityscape spread out below as actually outside and that the small lights several hundred feet overhead were really stars. In the dim glow Roy Fokker snuggled up to his girlfriend, Claudia Grant.

“Well Roy,” Claudia murmured. “It's not moonlight, but I give you that it is romantic.”

Roy snugged her close as they sat on the bench looking out through the trees, past the rail and down at the buildings spread out on the level below. They had been lucky. While most of the smaller plants had were killed by the vacuum freeze, about a third of the larger trees had survived their brief exposure to raw space. Those survivors had been transplanted into several park areas around the new city. Of course, the raw dirt stood out in contrast to the green foliage that was beginning to recover. Rumor had it that one of the organizations with their own shelter had offered up numerous different seeds to get the farm bay up and running but unfortunately, even that foresightful group had failed to plan for grass seed.

Even so, the park was an unexpected haven, so far from their homeworld.

A deep voice disturbed the peace of the evening. “Aw, look at the little love-birds. All wrapped up in the view.”

“I know,” a higher voice replied. “So romantic, all cuddled together.”

“Roy?” Worry laced the question she wove through his name.

“Stay put Claudia, it's just a couple of punks who don't know what they're dealing with.”

“Oooo. Brave fighter jock thinks he scares us.” The first speaker stared hard at Roy as he pulled his gameface on.

Groaning, Roy coiled himself for a fight.

“Hey fuglies!” A bright voice chirped as a short blonde stepped out of a thicket of trees. “Whatsamatter? Don't wanna play with little ol' me?”

Spinning a wooden stake in her hand, the girl stepped into one of the soft puddles of light that were scattered through the park. Roy looked at the girl, then at the two clearly non-humans in front of him. “Why the hell are there vampires on this... no. Nix that. You scum find your way anywhere. Why the hell is _THE_ Slayer on this ship and not on _EARTH!?!”_


	7. Fokker

**Fokker**

> _Damn! I thought Roy and I were beyond the secrets stage! Right now, I don't know if I should put the ship at risk and kill him outright or if I should be on my knees in church thanking the Lord that he kept this from me as long as he did. What I do know is with what I just learned, it is going to be a very long time before I manage to sleep peacefully through the night._
> 
> -War Diary of Claudia Grant

_Overlook Park, Macross City, Bay One – By the Bench_

“...Why the hell is _THE_ Slayer on this ship and not on _EARTH_!?!”

Two more vampires stepped out of the shadows behind the petite blonde, Roy's eyes flicking outward, marking their positions as his right hand slipped into the small of his back. 

“Long story flyboy,” the slayer answered, a nearly imperceptible nod of her head acknowledging the warning he had silently communicated. “We'll talk after. Meanwhile, lets make with the dusty.”

With that, the girl leaped upward into a reverse somersault. Executing a half twist, she landed a spin kick to the head of the vampire that had been to her back left. The stunned fledgling flew headfirst into one of the nearby trees. His partner turned and charged at the small blonde. As the fight with the slayer developed, the first two vampires grinned at each other and turned toward the pilot and his girlfriend. 

Then they began to laugh.

A feral grin gracing his own rough features, Roy Fokker had dropped into a fighting stance. In his right hand the metal blade of a large knife gleamed under the dim illumination. 

“Hey, dinner thinks its gonna stop us with a knife,” the deeper voiced one chuckled.

“Yeah, like his cutting us is only gonna hurt long enough for us to drain him and the broad.”

The two vampires looked at each other and charged. Spinning, Roy slammed the smaller one in the stomach with a side kick that sent it several feet backwards. As he recovered his stance, he lunged forward with the knife, straight at the heart of the larger of the two vampires.

Normally, bringing a knife to a vamp-fight would be the height of stupidity, but the combat knife Roy carried was far different from the standard K-Bar issued to most troops. He had personally designed the custom blade for use against various demonic creatures. In his youth he had contemplated selling them to others of his calling, but the incident with his aunt had turned him from that path. The blade itself was of the purest iron, inlaid through the center body of the blade was a heavy silver-filled etchwork, but most importantly, attached along the spine of the blade up to the vicious swoop that lead from the spine to the point and seated against the guard was a wooden spike. For now, Fokker's blade remained the only combat knife of its kind in existence.

Still laughing, the vampire exploded into a cloud of dust as the wooden spine of the combat knife followed the cold metal point through the Vampire's chest.

_Overlook Park, Macross City, Bay One – By the Trees_

Buffy was grinning like a madwoman. The tussle in the corridors had only served to whet her appetite, particularly since the three slayers and Xander had made such quick work of the vampires that had interrupted their searching. But this, this mayhem was what her inner slayer reveled in. Sparing a glance from her own two-on one battle she realized that the pilot had already dusted one of the two vamps attacking him.

With a low growl, she realized that it would not look good for the slayer to give the appearance of being rescued by a normal. Even if he was a combat experienced soldier.

She slammed her stake home in the more aggressive of her two opponents. 

She pouted. “Why don't I ever get to have any fun.”

Grabbing her remaining opponent, she picked him up and flung him at the one scrabbling off the ground to resume its attack on the pilot.

“Fun?!?” The pilot shouted. “You think this is fun?”

Buffy noted the maniacal grin on the man's face as the two of them closed on the entangled mass of vampire. Reaching down, they each grabbed a neck and lifted the fledglings off the ground. With a synchronized flash of movement Buffy's stake and Roy's knife dusted the remaining two vampires.

“Yep!” she grinned. “And so do you flyboy!”

_Overlook Park, Macross City, Bay One – By the Bench_

First Claudia was mad. The two punks daring to interrupt her personal time with Roy. Then she was confused as they began talking about her and Roy as food. Two more had shown up and now she was terrified, having gotten a good look at the faces of the things that were attacking them. The fact that Roy and the blonde he had called 'Slayer' had literally reduced the four to dust only made the fear worse. When the stuff of horror movies and bad tweenybopper fiction came to un-life in front of you and threatened to make you a midnight snack, it tended to turn one's life on its ear.

“You know, you're right,” Roy chuckled.

The blonde separated herself from Roy and walked toward the bench as Claudia sat staring blankly off toward the city.

Kneeling, she took Claudia's hand. “By your expression, I'm guessing that explaining this away as 'gangs on PCP' isn't going to work.”

Claudia blinked. “Gangs on PCP?”

“Town I grew up in had a real problem with vampires and other demons. Gangs on PCP, Barbecue fork accidents, wild animal attacks. The local police department had a whole book of coverup options.”

“Other demons?” Claudia shivered.

“Don't worry, we're pretty sure that only vampires made it on-board and they're pretty easy to keep under control. I'm Buffy Summers, pest control is kinda my job.”

“Claudia Grant.” Claudia nodded, then looked up at Roy and her vision went red. “YOU KNEW!”

Roy flinched. “What?”

“You knew about these... these... THINGS!” She growled. “How did you know and why didn't you tell me?”

“I... ah...” Roy glanced at Buffy. 

“Claudia,” Buffy spoke softly. “Would you have believed him if you hadn't seen them tonight?”

Claudia dropped her head into her hands and began to shake.

“C'mon flyboy. Grab your girl and lets get out of the open.” She gestured aft, toward a building sitting slightly separate on a rise. “We need to talk about a few things. Starting with your name?”

Roy shook his head as he scooped Claudia up in his arms. “Roy. Roy Fokker.”

_IWC Headquarters_

“ANDREW!” Buffy's shout rattled the building.

The geek bustled out of a nearby office and froze at the sight of Roy carrying a still shaky Claudia. “Vamp attack? Medical emergency? Is she hurt?”

“Woah, I only accept Willowbabble from the original source.” Buffy flinched, holding her hand up. “Food. And something stiff to drink for our guests.”

Dawn came down the stairs from the second floor with her nose buried in a book. “First back, I see. With those dulcet tones and company, I'd say you had a slightly more than uneventful patrol?”

Buffy shook her head. “I'm reducing the amount of time you're allowed around Giles.”

In eminently mature, sisterly fashion, the two girls stuck their tongues out at each other.

“Where is he, by the way?”

“Lounge, late dinner.” Dawn glanced at the two accompanying her sister. “What happened?”

“They got jumped by four vamps at the overlook.”

“Ouch, of course after the other day, it had to start sometime.”

Buffy gestured down the hallway. “Roy, if you two will come with me, we'll get you a bite to eat and then we can each make with some explanations.”

The pilot nodded and followed her to the door to the lounge. As he maneuvered Claudia through the door and over to a leather sofa he noted a gentleman near his own age fixing a cup of coffee on the other side of the room. While he got his girlfriend settled on couch, Buffy walked over and began filling the man in on the night's activities. From the sound of the low conversation, the man was most likely her watcher.

The snippets of voice he could hear sounded vaguely familiar, of course the tweed encrusted tones of the council had once been the familial birthright he refused. Briefly he met the eyes of the man, noting how he stood, polishing his glasses through Buffy's account.

Andrew bustled through the door with a bottle of scotch and a tray of glasses. He poured a pair and handed them to Roy. “Food will be right out,” and the young man was out the door again.

During the distraction, the watcher and slayer had approached the sofa. As he looked up, recognition dawned and he clambered to his feet.

“Ripper!” Roy threw his arms around the man he had not seen in 25 years.

“Skulls,” Giles smiled. “From what Buffy says, you haven't lost your edge.”

“Speaking of,” Roy groused. “Not that I'm complaining about having my life saved and all, but would someone tell me what the hell the Slayer is doing out here and not back on earth?”

Buffy dropped into an armchair across the low table from them. “He really hasn't kept up with the latest news has he?”

_IWC Headquarters' Lounge_

Roy sat at the table shaking his head in disbelief. “So you're telling me that every potential slayer has been activated?”

“No,” Buffy answered. “Every potential slayer has been given the choice. Some have refused the calling, but the majority have accepted. The IWC has taken responsibility for their training and well being. We, I, no longer tolerate any of the crap Travers and his cronies pulled.”

“And you're now head of the council,” Roy stated, smiling as slayers and watchers filtered into the room from their patrols. “About damn time! How many of you are aboard ship?”

“We've a dozen slayers and four watchers here. Also, our top Witch is on the engineering crew,” Buffy glanced at the gathering crowd in the room. “So Roy, what's your story?”

Fokker glanced at Claudia and then at Giles. “Slayers aren't the only ones with short life-spans in the demon slaying business. In fact, quite often slayers are preceded in death by their watchers.”

Buffy's face fell into a dark mask as memories of Merrick, her first watcher bubbled beneath the surface. 

Her watcher reached across the table and took her hand. “Buffy, in the old council all the field watchers were aware of the risks.”

“Wait,” Xander interjected. “Buffy was a virtually untrained slayer when you were assigned Giles.”

“THAT BASTARD!” 

“Buffy,” Giles' unnaturally calm voice answered. “Travers is dead.”

“Then I'll have Willow resurrect his ASS so I can SLAY IT!”

Giles pulled his glasses off and pinched his nose. “Buffy.”

“He sent you to someone he believed could not protect you. He sent you to die, Giles.”

“And yet I am still here.”

“And Travers is not.” Roy pointed out.

Giles looked over at his old friend. “Anna?”

Nodding slowly, Roy began his story. “It was soon after Travers deposed Rupert's father as head of the council. My family's support for the previous leadership was a somewhat less than minor irritant. While Ripper and I were off terrorizing the countryside as teenagers council politics were being waged using ancient and well established draconian methods. Quentin was still consolidating his grip on the leadership when it was discovered that a hidden potential had been called. Untrained and virtually ignorant of what it was she was meant to face.”

Roy took a deep, rattling breath as Claudia wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “Travers perceived my aunt as a potential threat to his newly acquired power base. She knew, of course. I still have the journals Aunt Anna shipped home. But the girl was her slayer and, as I am sure Giles understands, she couldn't not be a part of her fight.

“I was young and hotheaded. How could I be a part of an organization that treated its people that way. Giles here, he could see a future where Travers wasn't in charge, but me. If I'd have stayed there would have been war in the council,” Roy nodded toward Buffy, his hard voice softening. “And very possibly, that war would have resulted in a failure to prevent any one of the multiple apocalypses that threatened before your own calling.

“So I left, and went as far as I could from the supernatural. Hooked up with a guy by the name of Pops Hunter. He taught me to fly. And I don't just mean sitting up front and driving the bus either. He taught me to taste the wind, to become one with my machine. In the air, well maybe it's something in the council genes, the extra senses that we all seem to develop for the supernatural. Or maybe it was the magic we dabbled in, but out there, even before these Robotech ships I could feel it, cool air flowing across my wings like a tingle down my spine or fast water flowing past my skin.

“But my flying. It wasn't done just for me. Not the stunt shows nor later the combat. No, I flew for Anna. If she could give her everything, knowing that her situation was hopeless. Even though I'd walked away from the council, how could I do less. So I flew and I fought. I became the best, because no matter how good I could be, it would never be as great as what she was.”

Roy raised his glass. “To Anna. Watcher. Mentor. Martyr. Absent friend. And my favorite aunt.”

Giles raised his own glass. “To Anna Fokker.” Tears glistened in the eyes of the assembled slayers and watchers as each raised their own glass, thinking of the many friends who had fallen.

As the glasses were lowered Roy got a thoughtful look.

Claudia, recognizing her boyfriend's expression cocked her head. “What are you thinking Roy?”

“I'm thinking that I've got a class of recruits starting in a week who need to learn hand to hand combat skills if they're going to use their Veritechs properly.” He looked at Giles and Buffy. “I know how the old council was about its independence, in fact that is one of the few things I could agree with them about. But your skills and the ability to impart them to my pilots could mean the difference in our survival out here. I can set it up as an independent contract with the IWC if that would help.

Buffy turned to the red haired slayer who had perched on the arm of the sofa. “Vi, would you mind fetching your journal? You know which volume I need.”

The girl nodded and hustled out of the room.

“With vampires on board ship, we do have responsibilities, not only to the civilians, but to the entire crew. However,” she waved her arms to encompass the entirety of the room. “We are all here for a reason.”

Roy blinked, unsure if he wanted to hear the next part. In his limited council training and experience, slayers having a reason to be in a particular place was not generally considered to be good news.

“Tell me, Commander Fokker. How would you handle a fifty foot tall alien who managed to get turned?”

“Ah...”

Vi returned to the room with her journal, handing it to the senior slayer. Buffy thumbed through to a marked page where the redhead had sketched an extremely accurate rendition of a Valkyrie fighter in Battleiod mode, holding a wooden stake.

Turning the journal, she held it out to the pilot. “Vi's a pretty talented artist. You'll note the date of these entries.”

Roy took the journal, thumbing through the pages on either side of the drawing he looked into the younger slayer's eyes. “This is your dream journal?”

Vi nodded. “I'm not the only one who has had these dreams.”

Most of the slayers in this room have shared similar ones to those you're reading,” Buffy continued. “It was the accumulated dreams of all the slayers that convinced us that we should be here, on this ship instead of back home.” 

The battleoid mode of the VF-1 Valkyrie had been a closely held secret up to the day of the SDF-1's launch. Had it not been for the alien attack, Roy had no doubt it would still be top secret. He tapped his finger on the drawing, again noting the date. A date literally years before the first Veritech fighter flew. “So you're asking...”

Buffy nodded slowly. Everyone else in the room joining her.

Roy sat there in thought. “Training for training?”

“Plus the necessary equipment.”

“Out there, you'll follow orders, just like any other squadron.”

Twelve pairs of arms crossed, their accompanying heads cocking to one side, each bearing identical _you think I was born yesterday_ expressions. 

“We fight our own way,” Buffy spoke for the slayers. “You know our calling. For now, the enemy has not been in a position to have physical contact with any of our toothy friends. But it will happen and when it does, they become our primary target. Until then, consider us a special operations unit.”

“Okay, knowing how slayers fight, I can live with that. But first, we have to bring the Captain on board with all of this.”

_IWC Headquarters – Residential Wing_

“Vi, Appie.” Dawn came up behind and grabbed the two slayer’s shoulders as they returned to their rooms. “Got a sec?”

The two younger slayers glanced at each other and grinned. Dawn had taken to involving the two of them in the rather elaborate pranks she aimed at her older sister.

Steering the two of them into her room, she dug an envelope out of her purse and handed it to them as she shut the door. A moment later squeals and giggles echoed through the closed door and down the corridor.

_Captain's Office – Outside the SDF-1 Bridge_

Henry Gloval glanced down from his review of the previous day's log and checked the time on the monitor. The expected knock came as he sipped his coffee.

“Commander Fokker, Lieutenant Commander Grant, do come in.” The Captain's cultured, slavic accent putting those in hearing more in mind of a kindly uncle than that of a man with the absolute power of life and death over 75,000 people.

Gloval's CAG and Second Officer escorted three others into the office. “Captain Gloval,” Roy gestured. “I'd like to introduce Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers, and Willow Rosenberg.”

Gracious, Henry rose, taking each person’s hand and greeting them warmly. “A pleasure to meet all of you. Commander Fokker has indicated that your people have offered him an exchange of services in the interest of our mutual survival.”

“Perhaps Sir,” Giles responded. “Our organization has certain resources at our disposal. Resources that we have mutually decided to offer in exchange for certain considerations relating to our charter.”

“And what, exactly, is your organization?” The Captain reached for his ever-present pipe, resting the stem in the corner of his mouth.

“The International Watcher's Council is an NGO. We have treaty level agreements with all major and most second tier nations and the UN. Our purview is planetary protection from non-standard threats.”

“Such as alien invasions.” Gloval stated.

“Not precisely, Sir,” Buffy answered, pulling a folder and several thumb drives out of the (stylish, of course) satchel that was draped over her shoulder. “Under our agreements with the UN and the major powers, we will need you to sign the non-disclosure forms first.”

Henry took a moment to scan through the form, noting that it was a relatively standard format very similar to the ones he had first encountered upon being initiated into the SDF-1 program, and he said so.

“Ah yes,” Giles said, polishing his glasses. “Our predecessor organization was initially approached about overseeing this program, however at the time we were rather involved with a rather critical matter and the old council felt they could only act in an advisory capacity.”

“Bozhe Moi!” Gloval had begun reading the first page while Giles had been speaking. “This... This is pradylka!”

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances while Claudia tried to disappear into her chair.

“I assure you Captain. The contents of the folder are no joke.” Giles answered.

“Oopeer? Vampires?” Captain Gloval's notorious temper was beginning to kick in. “Skazan eyah!”

Willow flinched as he spat out the last phrase. “Most every fairy tale and myth has a basis in solid fact, Captain.”

Giles leaned forward. “I can verify my bonafides, if you would bring up the ship's security confirmation system.”

“With this pahvyest?” Eyes bugging out of his rugged face, Gloval keyed in the command for the security program then gestured for Giles to speak.

“Computer. Security verification Indigo Whiskey Charlie Romeo George Charlie Echo Oscar.”

_“Sir Rupert Giles voice print verified.”_ The computer immediately scrolled up a screen full of text which Gloval began to read.

Several times, the Captain looked up at the watcher with a piercing stare then back at his screen. Willow reached out and placed a hand on Buffy's arm as the slayer began twitching in her seat.

Finally, Gloval fixed a fiercely displeased look on the pilot. “Are you aware, Commander, exactly who it is you have escorted into my office? What kind of power this man wields?”

Roy nodded. “Sir, I've known Rupert since we were both young boys. From birth until I left home to become a pilot, I was trained for a similar role to that which he has shouldered for the last fourteen years.”

“I see.” Gloval clamped down on the pipe, considered lighting it, hesitated, reached for his matches and hesitated again. He pointed at the screen full of text on the monitor. “Commander, according to this, if your friend asked me for this ship, I am required to give it to him and ask no questions.”

Roy swallowed hard and glanced at the unassuming man in the tweed jacket.

“Gentlemen, I assure you that such authority would only be exercised at the direst need. All we wish to do here is put best use to the abilities we have in the interest of our mutual survival.”

“And what is it that a _demon hunting,_ ” Gloval spat the two words out with distaste, “organization can bring to the table?”

“Twelve unparalleled warriors to act as unarmed combat trainers for your recruits and active personnel. In exchange, we ask that these twelve young women also be trained as pilots and assigned Valkyrie(?),” Giles glanced at Roy who nodded, “fighters. We have reason to believe that our foes may develop vampiric traits and it would be best if we were prepared for such an eventuality in advance of needing the capability. Once trained, the ladies would make themselves available to the defense forces as a special operations group up until such time as their primary calling comes to fore.”

“What makes these twelve young women so special?”

“They're slayers, Sir” Roy answered.

“Slayers?”

“Page twelve in the folder,” Buffy nodded toward the papers under Gloval's elbow. “The paragraph begins with _'Contrary to popular mythology, the world did not begin as a paradise...'_ ”

Once more the Captain's eyes grew wide as he skimmed the section on the slayer's capabilities. “And these girls, they are real?”

“We are Captain.” Buffy answered, reaching into her bag and handing the Captain a length of steel re-bar. “If you would care to try to bend this?”

Gloval took the piece of steel and flexed it, but made little progress in deforming it. Taking it back from him, Buffy twisted the bar first into the shape of a pretzel, then further, into a coil which she proceeded to slip onto her arm and study like a new piece of jewelry. With a grin, she looked up at the the Captain. “I might have to tell Xander I've found a new use for his scrap pile.”

Henry looked at her for a moment then began to chuckle. The chuckle soon became a full fledged laugh and the tension in the room finally dissipated.

“Captain,” Buffy smiled. “The girls and I would be honored if you would join us for dinner some evening this week. We would be happy to give you a demonstration of our fighting abilities. Perhaps even take you out with us on a patrol of the city.”

Willow and Giles both flinched as Buffy said the word patrol.

“Patrol?” The Captain asked. “Why, gavareets skazats, would you be patrolling aboard my ship?”

“Ah,” Buffy winced. “Humans were not the only beings rescued from Macross Island's shelters.”

Gloval merely stared at her until she began to twitch in her seat.

The slayer ducked down in her seat. “Uh. There seems to be at least one nest of vampires on board.”

“Bozhe Moi!”

_Macross City – Main Shopping District_

“Appie, what do you think?”

April looked up from the store's dress catalog as Dawn stepped out of the changing room. “Uh...”

“GAH!” Dawn spun back to the dressing room.

“I told you that lavender wouldn't look good on you.”

“Where's Vi?” Dawn shouted from behind the door.

“She's chatting with the sales-lady about other available colors and styles.”

“Not here,” the brunette grumped. “I want to try that specialty shop we saw in grid seven before I decide to go custom. As is, I don't need this for several weeks yet.”

Vi drifted back from the sales counter. “Dawnie, I know you have your heart set on finding the perfect evening gown, but have you considered. Evening gown's are easy, find the right style and get it custom tailored for you.”

Dawn stuck her head around the door. “Well, if the evening gown is so easy, what do you suggest we should trying to find?

Vi and April looked at each other, grinned then chorused.

“The perfect swimsuit!”


	8. Raw Recruits

**_Raw Recruits_ **

> I was quite surprised that it was Faith who raised the most potent objections to the girls' training. Of course, I should not have been. She is, after all, the only one of them who has directly taken a human life. In the end, she too agreed that their directions were clear and that they would be needed. I shall have Commander Fokker talk with her about the moral differences.
> 
> _-Watcher's Journal of Rupert Giles_

_Robotech Defense Force Training Barracks_

“UP AND AT'EM SLUGS!” The screech of the Drill Instructor's voice nearly drowned out by the heavy drumming on the metal trashcan they were carrying.

Sergeant Melody Crane grinned in the evil manner that would make a vampire switch to vegetable juice. “Oh four twenty-five ladies! Just because you have special dispensations to leave the grounds at night doesn't mean you get to laze about in bed through all hours of the morning.”

“Fine.” Kennedy groused, rolling out of her rack. “You're coming with us tonight and I'll make sure you get first shot to stake a vamp.”

The first thing that Roy Fokker had done was hand select the Slayer's Drill Instructor and get her read in on what the Slayers' primary job was. This had included joining them on late night patrols. After getting over the shock of the supernatural being real, the RDF Sergeant had immediately launched into a critique of their teamwork and tactics.

“Looking forward to it Cadet!” Crane snapped. “Now drop and give me fifty for mouthing off.”

Several girls near Kennedy flinched at least as hard as she did herself. The events of six years before clearly still fresh in their minds. Buffy and Dawn exchanged glances and the younger Summers made a quick note to have a chat with the Latina slayer during breakfast. Buffy, meanwhile would have a similar conversation with the Sergeant.

“Two minutes! Fall in on the quad for inspection!” Sergeant Crane grinned again. These girls had definite potential in addition to their skills. She just hoped she could instill the necessary discipline in them that they would need to train the herd of cats that were coming down the pipeline.

_SDF-1 Captain's Office_

Captain Gloval rested his pipe against the teeth of his lower jaw. “So Commander, how are your ladies working out?”

“They're still a little undisciplined, Sir.” Fokker replied. “But they are coming along well. So far they've had three weeks of intensive training.”

“Will they be ready for the next recruitment batch?”

“I believe so Sir. As you know, their hand to hand skills are unparalleled. I've also never seen anyone take to the Veritech Battleoid controls as naturally as they do. In Fighter or Guardian modes they're about average, but in Battleoid, not even I could take them.”

“Excellent.” Gloval stared off at the far wall for a moment. “See to it that their training concentrates on the advantages each mode of operation has. Make them comfortable with the other modes.”

“That is already in work.” Roy fidgeted a bit. “There is one other thing Sir.”

“Da?”

“I feel that Miss Summers is going to require a level of authority that being commissioned as a Lieutenant will not necessarily grant her. With her experience over the last fourteen years and her clear position of leadership amongst the slayers, I'd like to see her commissioned as a Lieutenant Commander.”

“Are you sure that is wise Commander?”

“Sir, If I could make her an Admiral, I would do so in a heartbeat.”

Gloval merely stared at his Airgroup Commander.

“Such a commission is not unprecedented where the individual's experience warrants. You've read the same brief I have. On average, she has stopped at least one world ending apocalypse in each of the last fourteen years. For the last six of those, she's been the head of the global organization under who's purview such events fall, commanding thousands of watchers and slayers in those battles. She is here, on this ship because this is where she believes she, and those with her are needed.”

“Approved. Help her select her second and have them all commissioned as officers, just in case a situation arises where their group needs the authority.”

Roy nodded. Having them all be officers would turn the squadron T.O. & E. on its ear by RDF standards. On the other hand, most of the national militaries still operated on the basis that fixed wing pilots were officers. Besides, these were slayers.

_SDF-1 Crossing the Orbit of Neptune_

_“Battlestations! All hands to battlestations! All pilots report to your mecha! I repeat Battlestations! Enemy attack eminent!”_

Roy found himself facing down an irate slayer after the mission briefing. “Why not!”

“Buffy, your team is good, but they're not ready yet. At least not for out there. You've learned a lot, which is why I'm trusting you with the assignment I have.”

“But...”

“No buts Commander,” Roy stroked her ego by using the accepted contraction of her full rank. “Your girls are the best I've seen in Battleoid mode, which is why I'm fully comfortable assigning you to be the rapid reaction force should the enemy break into the ship. Trust me, in another month, you'll have the flight and sim time under your belt to be an asset out there.”

Buffy's fierce eyes still had fight in them.

“Would you send a slayer out who you thought wasn't ready, no matter how much potential they showed?”

“That's not...”

“That's EXACTLY what is going on here. Listen, I get it. You're a warrior bred to fight. Your time is coming. Meanwhile I've given you an important job that frees up fully trained pilots for other missions. I'm counting on you Lieutenant Commander Summers. You've got our back so we can get medieval on these guys.”

Buffy nodded, then stepped back and snapped off a regulation perfect salute. “Just see that you come back in one piece. You're the only one on this ship that can give my girls a challenge in the sims.”

Roy returned the salute with a lopsided grin. “Mount up and deploy your unit, Slayer.”

Buffy and her sister hopped into their jeep, Dawn slamming the transmission through its gears as they raced across the ship to where their squadron was based. “At least you get to pilot your mecha,” Dawn groused. “Andrew and I get to fly consoles, monitoring the ship.”

In spite of herself, Buffy grinned at her sister's grousing. “Watch it Sunrise. At least you'll actually be doing your job, instead of standing on a street corner like an oversized suit of armor.”

“I'm still mad you made me take the radar intercept specialty. I wanted to be a Veritech pilot.”

“Yeah, well you were training to be a watcher. At least you and Andrew get to rotate out on who flies and who sits console on the CatsEye.”

“Yeah, great,” Dawn huffed. “You get a battleoid. I get a sitting duck. That bird isn't staying unarmed if I have to ride in it.”

Buffy laughed. “Andrew's already got Willow working on something for you.”

Cocking an eyebrow, her sister stared at her.

“You'll have to ask him... or Willow,” Buffy answered. “My instructions are to say 'Happy Birthday' and leave it at that.”

The jeep squealed into the parking space at the end of the squadron flightline. Dawn and Buffy both leaping over the sides before the engine fully ticked to a stop. Dawn quickly grabbed Andrew and the two of them took off for internal sensory.

“Nine-Nine-Eight Squadron FALL IN!” Sergeant Crane had wrangled a temporary attachment to the unit, one she definitely hoped would become permanent.

The girls all rushed over from where they'd been pre-flighting their birds.

“Nine-Nine-Eight sounds so impersonal, doesn't it?” Buffy inquired while returning the unit's salute.

“Command is issuing color-code call signs to new units,” Melody answered with a disinterested voice. “Rumor is Black's the next one up.”

“Oooo... we can _so_ be _Black Squadron_ ,” Buffy snarked. “Okay _Black Squadron_ , we've got a mission! Our job, of which we have been chosen to accept, is to be the rapid reaction defense force for internal security.”

She watched the high spirits of her team drop. “Hey!” Their eyes all snapped back to hers.

“Sergeant Crane, how many training squadrons started at the same time as us?”

Melody snapped to parade ground perfect attention, shouting the answer. “Five, Sir!”

“And how many of them are deploying today?” Buffy followed.

“Just the Nine-Nine-Eight, Sir!”

Buffy nodded sharply to her teammates as that bit of praise sank in. “We'll break into three elements. Faith, take your element to Bay One. Kennedy, you've got Bay Three. I've got Bay Two. Dawn and Andrew are taking station in the ship's security center. We are to watch for breakthroughs by the enemy and respond accordingly should they succeed in entering the ship. Also, I want your eyes open for Vamp activity. We all know how they like to take advantage of chaos. Now mount up!”

Climbing off the ladder Buffy strapped into the seat and toggled the switches to begin powering up the VF-1 Valkyrie fighter. As the systems began to come online, she snugged her flight helmet with its integrated 'thinking cap' system just a little tighter. A tingle down her spine indicated that the system had synchronized and her fighter was now fully online. Buffy grinned, she had never expected that strapping into a machine would be such a thrill, but something about the slayer inside her seemed naturally attuned to the power that the Valkyrie possessed. One more scan of the instruments verified that her bird was ready.

Reaching out, she toggled the radio to the command circuit. A display on her left marking the eleven other fighters of her unit and their status. About to speak she paused. There was no way in any hell dimension that she was going by Black One as a call sign. Hell, there was already a Wolf Squadron and Roy had his Skull squadron, there was no reason she should settle for some randomly assigned blob off the color pallet.

“Prometheus control, this is Nine-Nine-Eight... Slayer Squadron, Slayer One. Ready to deploy as internal Rapid Reaction Force.”

Faith's growl came through her headset. _“Hell yeah B! Slayer Two Five by Five!”_

_“Slayer Three!”_ Kennedy couldn't keep the grin out of her voice.

_“Yee Haw! Slayer Four!”_ Vi yipped.

_“Slayer Five ready to kick ass.”_ Rona replied.

_“And take names!”_ April chimed in. _“Slayer Six ready!”_

LuAnn was next. _“Slayer Seven, lets Rock!”_

_“Slayer Eight ready!”_ Her frenemy Leah answered.

_“Slayer Nine.”_ Mandy's soft, southern accent spoke. _“Bring it on.”_

_“Tally Ho!”_ Liz's British accent came over the radio. _“Slayer Ten ready!”_

_“Let's crank it up to eleven!”_ Emmy chirped. _“Slayer Eleven A-Okay!”_

Finally, Debbie's New York Italian accent came through. _“Guess I make it a dirty dozen. Slayer Twelve, ready, willing and able!”_

_SDF-1 Bridge_

Lisa Hayes listened to the newest active squadron rattle off their improvised check-in on the bridge speakers. “They do know they're only deploying inside and on a precautionary basis, right?”

Claudia looked up from her monitors. “Of course they do. Besides, I think Lieutenant Commander Summers set the right mood for them by selecting their squadron name.”

_“Slayer One this is Warlock,”_ a male voice came across the circuit. _“On console and ready for the mission.”_

_“Slayer One, Sunrise. Go get'em sis!”_

Lisa chuckled to herself for a moment before keying her own microphone. “Slayer Squadron, this is SDF-1. You are go for RRF deployment.”

_“Acknowledged! Sunrise, clear our deployment routes. Guardian mode for the march switching to Battleoid once on station. Slayer Squadron, eyes open high and low. Let's move out!”_

_“//Ready to be strong!//”_ The combined voices answered.

_RDF Training Facility_

Buffy groaned as she watched yet another set of students muddle through the motions of hand-to-hand combat without really understanding it. Every one of these children had Valkyrie fighter's dancing in their eyes and no thoughts whatsoever about why they were designed to transform.

“Cadet Hunter!” Buffy barked. “Front and center!”

The young cadet stepped out of the line and ran to the front.

“Everyone else, sit down,” her eyes locked on to several slow movers, marking them for practice targets. “It is my understanding that you've actually already flown a Valkyrie in combat.”

“Uh,” the boy stammered. “That's correct ma'am.”

“And what did you think of the Valkyrie in the fighter mode?”

“Sweet!” The boy blushed. “I mean it handled well, was very agile, so agile in fact that I stalled it and nearly pancaked in a flat spin.”

Buffy smiled. “Nice to meet an honest pilot. What about the guardian mode?”

“It was interesting. I think the closest thing I could compare it to would be ice skating because of how it uses the jet thrust as an air cushion. It's a great way to get between two close points on the ground quickly without exposing oneself to anti-aircraft fire.”

Nodding, Buffy set her hook. “And the battleoid mode?”

Rick's jaw worked open and closed several times.

“Had some trouble with that one, didn't you?”

“Yes ma'am,” Rick answered, his shoulders slumping.

“Care to take a stab at why?” Buffy jerked the line, landing her fish.

Rick shrugged. “Lack of training?”

Laughter exploded from Buffy's mouth. “I guess we could say that. One more question and you can take a seat. Describe for me our enemy.”

Rick's eyes widened.

“Come on. I have it on good authority that you've personally seen one of them.”

“Ah... er... Well t..they look kinda like us. Human, that is. Except,” Rick swallowed hard. “Aaahh the one I encountered was at least as tall as a Valkyrie battleoid.”

Buffy patted him on the shoulder and he literally ran to his place amongst the recruits.

“Cadet Hunter was not exaggerating! Based on what we know so far, our enemy's average height is around fifty feet. Now you're sitting out there saying, _They're fifty feet tall, there ain't no way I'm gonna go hand to hand with these guys._ Guess what. You. Are. Wrong!”

Buffy stepped to a console off to one side and queued up a series of videos taken during the fighting on Macross Island.

“As you can see, there were several occasions where these enemies managed to engage us in close combat. As your Valkyrie familiarization courses have pointed out, in addition to the manual controls, your fighter also uses deep brain scanning as a means of controlling the finer elements of piloting, especially in battleoid mode.”

Buffy froze the screen as one of the Battleiod's threw a perfect side kick into the gut of an enemy soldier.

“This pilot happens to be a black belt in Tai-kwan-do.” She advanced the fight in slow motion. “Notice how the robot uses perfect form for each move. This is NOT something you can do with levers and pulleys! In fact, as Mr. Hunter can attest, levers and pulleys won't even make a Battleoid walk! You have to be mentally attuned to exactly what you want the machine to do or it is not going to happen.

“And thus we arrive at our reason for being here. My girls and I are going to teach you how to fight so when you get in your machines and you need to throw a punch or perform a judo move, you'll know what you're doing and what it feels like so that the machine understands what you want it to do. Now, Mr. Axelrod, you did not appear to be taking this very seriously so why don't you step up here and try to take me down?”

_En-route From RDF Training Facility to IWC Headquarters_

Tires squealed as Vi hauled the jeep around the corner into the main corridor accompanied by the laughter of the passengers.

“So,” Faith twisted around in her seat to look at the other three in the truck. “You three do realize that everyone knows you're up to something.”

Dawn grinned from the back seat. “Of course. If there's nothing else Spike taught me, blindsiding Buffy is out of the question. For this to be fun, she has to know she's being hunted.”

Faith laughed. “Captain Peroxide always did have that flair. Glad to see someone is keeping up the tradition.”

“Somehow, it just doesn't seem right to let his years of training me to tweak her go to waste,” Dawn nodded.

Reaching in her purse, Dawn pulled out the envelope and passed it to the brunette slayer.

“Damn Little D!” Faith let loose a low whistle. “You don't do these things by halves, do you?”

“Nope! Soo Faith, care to help me choreograph a little martial arts demonstration?”

Faith cocked an eyebrow. “How little?”

“Oh, about twelve to fifteen minutes, armed and unarmed with just me, twelve slayers and Xander.”

“Xander?”

Dawn nodded. “I plan to dress him in tweed.”


	9. Roads

**Roads**

> There are first times for everything. The first time I slew a vampire. The first time I met Xander. The first time I encountered Giles. The first time I died. That first time. The first time I really held my sister. The first time I took a cat shot in a Valkyrie. The first time my sister really surprised me. Some are bad…really bad, but most, like the last were good…really, really good.
> 
> _  
> Interview With a Slayer – Macross Broadcasting System_

**SDF-1 Crossing Jupiter Orbit – PROMETHEUS Hangar Deck**

_“Master Switch to standby.”_

_“Check.”_

_“Radar Master to off.”_

_“Radar off.”_

_“Hellram systems to off.”_

_“Hellram's off.”_

_“Prestart complete. Move to Startup Checklist.”_

_“Startup Checklist ready.”_

Their craft rocked gently in the artificial gravity as the deck crew hooked up the tractor to the nose gear and began the evolution necessary to move a thirty ton aerospace craft from the hangar deck of the PROMETHEUS to flight deck.

**IWC Headquarters**

Redemption is a long, painful road. A pathway fraught with potholes and detours, sudden turns and blind curves. For those on the legitimate road, they quite often find themselves circling back to those they have injured the most. Contemplating the irony of his place, one such traveler walked down a narrow hallway in a rather average looking building indistinguishable from many others of its style, save for its location in the belly of a massive spacecraft a hundred million miles from the world where it was built. 

Shaking his head, the traveler's mind wondered at his position via the consideration of the callsign his compatriots had chosen for him. Warlock. A dark name, fitting for the person he had become before setting foot on the road. He could have argued. In his heart he knew what he wanted to be. He could have convinced them that Jedi was just as good. Of course, he had not. He was Warlock, because if he lobbied for Jedi, then his own heart would insist that the darkness he had embraced made him Sith instead. 

There were times he could almost forget, fall into old patterns of behavior, just be a geek. At least among the others, those who came to Sunnydale late. But never around the core Scoobies, and especially never around… her. Swallowing hard, Andrew Wells knocked lightly on the wooden door. Once more, guilt washed over him as he considered what he had been a part of, and what it had cost the woman he was about to visit.

A slightly slurred, almost husky voice answered from beyond the door. “Come in.”

And he was standing in front of her. She who was a fellow traveler on this road _because_ of the actions he and his compatriots had taken. She who had flayed his former leader without trial or recourse for the crime of killing her lover. She who had nearly ended the world in the all consuming grief that resulted from Warren’s heinous act. That the lover’s injury was not even contemplated, could even be considered a true accident of fate bore no weight in Andrew’s heart. She had forgiven him, even as she refused to forgive herself… as he refused to forgive himself. “Willow?”

She glanced up from the computer screen on her desk and smiled. “Andrew. How can I help you?”

He flinched, self guilt overriding her forgiveness. Again. Reaching out, he set the book he was carrying on her desk. “I found that description we discussed and marked the passages.”

The red haired robotechnologist picked up the copy of Tom Clancy’s ‘Debt of Honor’ and thumbed it open to the marked page, skimming the section. Standing, she grabbed his hand. “This I can do.”

Andrew smiled and relaxed. “Well, I have accepted the mission to protect Buffy’s sister.”

Willow snorted. “Yeah, but Dawnie is still going to love this!”

**PROMETHEUS Hangar Deck**

_“Main Power Master Switch to on.”_

_“Main Power on.”_

_“Initiate Reflex Furnace Start.”_

_“Reflex Furnace start.”_

_“Life support to on.”_

_“Life support on. Positive Oh-two flow. Temperature controls are green.”_

_“Close canopy.”_

Gold layered perspex lowered around the two individuals aboard the heavily modified Spaceborn Warning And Control bird known in the RDF as a 'Cat's-Eye'. Moments later the curtain door slid to the side and the tractor pushed the craft into the elevator four airlock.

**Macross City**

The music's thrumming pulse rolled through her body, resonating in her chest, making her feel as if the still heart there still beat... almost. Licking her lips she looked up into the eyes of her drunken dance partner. Smiling a smile that had been her bread and butter, once upon a time in Victorian London, she raised her hand to trace a finger along the sailor's jaw and neck.

Oh yes, he would do far better than almost any of that gaggle of children they had sired in the shelter. After-all random turnings were generally good only for creating cannon-fodder for the smart ones like Morgan, Lanaya and herself. The off duty officer laughed, thinking of how lucky he was going to be this evening. Beth joined him and agreed about said luck for her own inimitable reasons as she steered him toward the club's back door.

In a different club Lanaya pulled a young doctor into a back room as two of her sire-siblings lured a pair of young girls out of the club in clear sight of the slayer who had staked out place. As her stalking horses drew off the immediate danger she too led her victim out of the club and into the decks that hid beneath the streets of Macross City. Fully in her thrall, the intern trailed behind the teen vampire as she lead him to the nest she had prepared for his siring.

Others may have felt that the endorphins released by their prey's fear made for a tasty meal, but Lanaya had decided that there were other chemicals that the prey could be induced to release in their blood. At the door she paused to kiss the doctor, unbuttoning his shirt as she pushed him into the dimly lit room. Pushing him down on the mattress she had acquired from bay five she slipped out of her dress and threw herself at him.

Yes, they would both enjoy the evening, even as she did her dinner.

Morgan looked down at the young engineer who he had just drained, gently laying his bleeding wrist against her mouth and smiling as her moist lips caressed the dark trickle that flowed onto her tongue. Louise Carter's lifeless eyes blankly staring at the featureless gray ceiling of the vampire's nest.

Soon. Soon his new plan would come to fruition. By intent or accident, humanity had become a player on the interstellar stage. He had no intent of allowing them to leave their oldest and closest enemies behind. 

No, humanity would not escape the old one's curse so easily. And those other beings out there, perhaps they would be tasty snacks as well.

**PROMETHEUS Flight Deck**

_“PROMETHUS Control, Watcher. Sunrise, Pilot in Command. Comm-check.”_

_“Watcher, Sunrise. Comm-check confirmed PROMETHEUS has you five by five.”_

_“PROMETHEUS Control, Watcher. Warlock, Combat Systems Officer. Comm-check.”_

_“Watcher, Warlock. PROMETHEUS has you five by five.”_

_“PROMETHEUS Control, Watcher requests departure clearance.”_

_“Watcher you are cleared to departure control.”_

_“Sunrise affirmative!”_

_“Taxi to cat two and good hunting!”_

_“Watcher departing cat two.”_

On deck, the yellow-shirt cocked his head, listening to the instructions from the deck boss. With a nod, he snapped his two orange wands up in a crossed pattern, made eye contact with the pilot, then separated the wands and began to motion her slowly forward. The young woman in the front seat advanced the throttles and slipped the brakes allowing the ungainly craft to inch onto the flightline, following the direction of their deck guide as he lead them clear of the other craft on deck and turned them toward the port forward catapult, halting them in front of the blast shield which raised behind them as the pin latched in the shuttle. Brakes locked, the pilot advanced the throttles to full, the matte black craft vibrating violently for five seconds before she pulled the engines back to idle while the craft in front of theirs on cat one was accelerated to near patrol speed by the electromagnetic catapult. With a moment of quiet, the young pilot wondered what the PROMETHEUS bridge crew thought of the giant unit insignia that had been painted atop her craft's radar dome.

**IWC Headquarters**

“Again. This time at speed.”

Sweat rolled into Dawn's eyes as Faith's command sent her racing to first position, lithely dodging the slayers who were also being drilled on the choreography. The music started and she spun in place, raising her wooden practice sword, also known as a broom-handle, to deflect Vi's attack, kicked Rona, and ducked Appie's slash. Grinning, she let her movements flow in time with the music Andrew had brought to her and Faith. How Andrew had found out about the competition, the young watcher did not know, but in spite of her initial misgivings, his selection of music was perfect. Besides, Buffy still did not know...

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!?!”

Oops! Dawn grinned again. “Rehearsal!” She snapped without breaking her stride through the choreography.

“Rehearsal for WHAT, Dawn?”

Dawn gave the hand signal that all the slayer's knew for an immediate freeze. One of the many things that the watchers and slayers had learned during the course of their RDF training. Turning, they all faced their leader with wide grins. “Why, the Miss Macross competition, of course. I can't win if I don't perform a talent, and you yourself have said that I should never, never, EVER sing again.”

Buffy stood in front of the doorway, fish mouthing and making odd gag noises.

Her grin growing larger, Dawn flounced up in front of her little, if older, sister, leaned over, threw her arms around her and picked her up in a hug. “Gotcha.” She whispered. “Now, we do have a part for you in this. You interested?”

“W..we?” Buffy squirmed. “ME?!?”

“Yep!” Dawn nodded vigorously as she set Buffy back on her feet. 

Buffy's eyes lit up. “You mean you're really in the competition?”

Dawn's nod took on earthquake bobble-head proportions. As she took the acceptance letter out of Faith's hand and passed it over.

The smile on Buffy's face got even bigger as she read the letter. All the other girls gathered around as their leader began to unconsciously bounce on her toes. The bounces became jumps as she grabbed Dawn's hands and the two of them began an uncontrolled giggle that built and built and built until the walls were shaking under the earsplitting squeals of 13 young women.

~~~***~~~

In the IWC Headquarters' main office, four men looked up, startled, from the small mountain of paperwork they were wading through. Paperwork that had piled up because Xander was still off most days rebuilding the city, Robin was busy getting one of the two high schools up and running, Andrew spent most days with the girls in RDF training. This left only Giles, who had found a fair amount of his own free time tied up with the advisory committee that Captain Gloval had established to smooth relations between the ship's command structure and the civilians of Macross city.

“What the hell was that?” Robin asked.

“No idea.” Giles answered as the other two men looked at each other and grinned.

“I think,” Andrew chuckled while flipping his day planner open. “Buffy just found out that Dawnie is in the Miss Macross Competition. Oh, and Xander, you owe me twenty bucks.”

“Aww maaaan.”

**PROMETHEUS Flight Deck**

_“Watcher, this is PROMETHEUS control. You are cleared for departure on vector two niner zero hash minus four five. Patrol zone Baker. Be sharp and good hunting!”_

“PROMETHEUS, Watcher Sunrise. Affirmative. Two niner zero hash minus four five to zone Baker.”

Dawn took one last look over the controls, verifying the settings were all correct. “Ready to go Warlock?”

Andrew settled himself back in his seat, helmet pressed tight against the thin padding of the headrest. _“All set Sunrise!”_

Dawn decided not to suppress the grin she felt as Andrew answered. “All right, here we go.”

Turning in her seat, she made eye contact with the yellow shirted catapult officer and snapped off a regulation perfect salute. The Cat-Officer returned the salute and Dawn settled herself into her seat, reaching up to grab the chicken-grips on either side of the cockpit. From this moment through the next thirty seconds, the computers of the Catapult system and their ship had control. There was a thud as the catapult took up the remaining slack in their connection.

“Three...” she whispered to herself. “Two... OoooooonnneYEEEEEHAAAAAAAA.”

The electromagnetic catapult slammed the forty ton craft from zero to one-hundred and fifty knots in two hundred feet, rocketing them off the deck and saving them tons of fuel that they would use to extend their patrol time. The ship's computer automatically cycled the engines to bring their speed up to cruise.

As the acceleration ended, Dawn quickly scanned her readouts, verifying that they were on course and that all critical systems were operational. “Okay Warlock, lets light things up.”

_“On it Sunrise. Spinning up the dome and bringing Hellrams online.”_

“Acknowledged.”

A flash of light several miles off her left wing drew her attention.

_“Watcher, Slayer Squadron, Slayer One.”_ The left panel in front of her lit up with a video of her sister at the controls of her Valkyrie. _“All units formed up and ready for patrol.”_

Dawn could not keep the adrenaline fueled grin off her face. “Sunrise, Affirmative Slayers, handing off to Warlock.”

As Andrew took up the communications with the Squadron, assigning vectors to the various elements, Dawn reached out and activated the command channel. “SDF-1, this is Watcher. Have rendezvoused with Slayer Squadron and am initiating patrol.”

_“Watcher this is the SDF-1. Understood.”_ Commander Lisa Hayes' voice answered. _“Good hunting ladies!”_


	10. God of War

**God of War**

> Sol IV, The Red Planet, Ka, Nirgal, Ares, Mars. Early robotechnology had enabled the world's leading nations to finally do what had been dreamed of by the likes of Von Braun, Goddard and Tsilkovski. Humanity grasped the high rung and swung itself outward, establishing a new home away from Earth. Unfortunately, we took our problems with us. Three thousand people paid the price because of one suicidal fanatic. SARA Base was left as a memorial to those innocents. But when you are running for your life and short on supplies. I like to think that those three thousand souls joined with us today.
> 
> _-Personal Log of Captain Henry Gloval. Commanding Officer – SDF-1_

**PROMETHEUS Veritech Pilot's Ready-Room**

Dawn looked around the theater-like room as the squadron commanders and their wing leaders shifted in their seats waiting for the CAG and the SDF-1's XO to begin the briefing. As usual, when there were fighter-jocks in attendance, the saucer-heads had been relegated to a confined back corner of the stadium seating. Buffy, Faith and Kennedy slid into the seats directly in front of her and Andrew, her sister twisting around to face her.

“So, anything juicy?” the blond pleaded.

Having already been in the room for a half-hour, Dawn shrugged. “Nothing we didn't already know or expect. I took a look at the charts they've posted and noted down our assigned area of operation. Looks like they don't want us directly over SARA. Guess they're not sure we can really fly.”

Buffy rolled her eyes while Faith snickered and Kennedy frowned.

“ROOM!” Commander Wolff's voice carried over the myriad conversations, causing everyone to leap to attention.

On the heels of that movement, Commanders Roy Fokker and Lisa Hayes, respectively the Commander Air Group and the Executive Officer of the SDF-1, entered the room.

“As you were,” Roy ordered, causing the assembled pilots to return to their seats. He then gestured the bridge officer to the podium. “Commander Hayes.”

Lisa nodded and began the briefing. “As you all are aware, Mars Base SARA was abandoned in place after the terrorist attack that annihilated its population. Due to our desperate need for additional supplies and critical spare parts to execute repairs we will be landing the ship there in approximately 18 hours. We expect to be on the ground for between twelve and twenty-four hours, during which time we will empty SARA Base of all usable supplies and spares. 

“Due to potential residual effects from the toxin, anyone who finds themselves on the base will remain fully suited, even if life support is up and running in that local area. They will also undergo a full decontamination sequence. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go provide briefings to the Destroid and Civilian contingents for this operation.” Stepping away from the podium she nodded to the CAG, “Commander Fokker?”

Roy nodded as he stepped back to the podium. “Thank you Commander Hayes. Room, attenTION!”

Lisa nodded slightly to the pilots before turning and exiting through the same door by which she had entered.

“Okay everyone,” Roy picked things back up. “Settle them, we have a lot to go over here. Assignments first. Wolf Squadron, you're orbital cover. Expect a twenty-four to thirty-six hour deployment. Long D loadouts are being prepared for your mech by the PROMETHEUS deck crew.

“Slayer Squadron. You have two missions. First, you have no atmospheric flight experience, therefore your primary assignment is aerobatic familiarization within your patrol area. Lieutenant Commander Tanner's wing, Skull 4, Skull 6 and Skull 8 will be accompanying you to provide instruction. Your secondary mission is strategic combat reserve. Lieutenant Commander Summers, should that contingency be activated I am trusting you with my men.

“994 Red, 995 Green, 996 Blue, and 997 Orange Squadrons are on Guardian Mode ground sweeps outside the Destroid perimeter.

“Finally, Skull Squadron, we're Combat Air Patrol directly over the ship and SARA Base. Two-Thirds initial deployments for all units with a two hour rotation. Once the initial all clear sounds deployed forces will be half mobile and half Battleoid security. 

“Slayers, you're exempted from the one third rotation. For the initial six hours you're on full deployment.”

**Twenty Miles East of SARA Base**

Grabbing the wheel of the heavy truck firmly in his hands, Xander stared through the windshield at the ass end of a line of heavy Destroids who, like him, were waiting for the SDF-1 to touch down and the huge landing ramp of the DEADALUS to deploy. A solid thud echoed through the giant metal chamber as a shock of motion rattled through the truck's springs and the knees of the articulated war machine in front of him flexed deeply. The loud wail of a siren and the flash of red lights had him performing a fifth check on his pressure suit seals moments before a metallic screech and flash of natural sunlight announced the opening of the landing ramp. All around him mecha and wheeled cargo vehicles fired up their systems.

_“DEADALUS Control to Destroid advanced element, you are go to deploy.”_

_“Acknowledged.”_

Reaching out to the controls on his dash, Xander dialed back the volume on his truck radio as the four ranks of walking tanks marched down the ramp and established a horseshoe shaped perimeter in front of the ship. Glancing in his rear-view mirror he noted the double line of ten buses loaded with stevedores from the Macross City docks.

_“DEADALUS Control to salvage team. You have a go.”_

Xander keyed the transmit button for the mic in his helmet. “Affirmative DEADALUS. Okay Salvage team, you all have your assignments. Drivers, slow and steady, let's move out!”

With a slow grind, he dropped the heavy truck into its lowest gear and slipped the clutch. With a lurch it began to ease forward, then nosed over the edge of the ramp. To either side, similar vehicles performed the same evolution. Hitting third gear by the bottom of the ramp Xander pulled in behind the already advancing Destroids, taking care to keep to the clear lane being left between their deep sets of footprints in the Martian soil.

**Zone Tango – Burroughs Base**

_“Okay Slayers,”_ Lieutenant Commander Tanner's voice came over the radio. _“Burroughs Base was never completed, but the runways are fully intact atop the mesa. We'll start with touch and goes, just like we've done in the simulator. Watcher first, then everyone else by the numbers. After ten of each we'll all land and I'll give a quick primer on aerobatics. Sunrise and Warlock with swap seats and do more touch and goes while the rest of us put on an aerial circus.”_

“You ready for this Andrew?” Dawn asked as she safed her systems for the maneuvers. 

_“Ready as I'll ever be,”_ his voice announced in her ear. 

Dawn cinched her straps tighter and schooled her face into an expressionless mask while Warlock initiated his first atmospheric approach. 

~~~***~~~

Buffy forced herself to watch as the Cats-Eye five miles in front of her drifted down slowly, its main wheels kicking up a red cloud of dust a third of the way down the strip. More dust swirled into the thin Martian air as Andrew threw the throttles forward and the ungainly recon bird accelerated down the runway clawing its way back into the sky. 

By this point Slayer 1 was too busy with her own approach to admire the smooth climb Warlock had executed.

_“Well done Warlock,”_ Tanner's voice crackled from the speakers. _“Continue your heading to the ten mile marker and circle right for your second approach. Slayer One, pattern is clear.”_

Buffy acknowledged the call then side-slipped her Valkyrie to adjust for the cross-wind sweeping away the dust Watcher had kicked up atop the mesa. Wings stretched wide at the full forward position, she drifted the massive fighter down, kicking the rudder at the last moment to point the nose straight down the runway as her wheels met concrete with a screeching thump.

Grinning like a loon, she rammed the throttles to their stops, giant gouts of flame erupting from her engines as the afterburners kicked in and she roared back into the air.

~~~***~~~

Skull 4 stood in the middle of the group atop the mesa, their Guardian configured Valkyries and one wheels down Cat's Eye arrayed around them. “The most important thing to remember is that air has mass. It will resist your movement. Those snap turns and rolls, charging a Battleoid through the furball at high speed, they're all far more difficult, if not impossible in an atmosphere. The second thing to remember is gravity. When you combine resistance with gravity it is very easy to fall out of the sky if you do not manage your energy properly. You've all done this in the sims back on ship. Now you get to feel it for real.

“Sunrise, while you do your touch and goes, Six will take Angel Flight, Eight will take Anya Flight and I'm taking Spike Flight and we are going to lead this merry band through a fun little game of follow the leader. Barrel rolls, Immelmans, loops, booster climbs, pretty much the whole air show. Next opportunity, I'll get you and Warlock into a trainer and we'll let you do this in something that can pull off the maneuvers.”

Buffy unfolded from her seated position. “Faith, Kennedy. Assemble your pilots. Spikes! Mount up, power up and check in!” With that she led Vi, LuAnn and Liz to their mechs at a jog.

“Angels on me!” Faith cried out, running for her fighter as Rona, Leah and Emmy laughed along behind her.

Kennedy looked at April, Mandy and Debbie the remaining four pilots. “Okay Anya Flight are we going to let a pair of teams named after vampires out fly us?”

_“//HELL NO!//”_ her girls shouted.

With a grin she sprinted to her bird, as Faith shouted out over the comms, _“Ride them hard!”_

_“//Put 'em away broken!//”_ eleven female Valkyrie pilots shouted back in her ears much to the consternation of the three Skull Squadron men.

**Salvage Operation SARA Base**

Xander was worried. So far everything was going significantly ahead of schedule. The teams had already emptied the entire remaining stocks of non-perishable food items and hoses run from the ship had nearly drained the entire base potable water supply. On-site tests showed that the toxin that had been released to kill off the residents was a short lived variety that had broken down years before.

As he backed his rig up to the loading dock for the storage warehouse on the east side of the base he began scanning all around, including up. After-all, 'other shoes' did drop on one's head from above.

His radio chose that moment to crackle to life. _“Salvage team, finish loading the trucks on site and get back aboard.”_

“Damn it!” Xander shouted before keying open his mic. “Salvage Lead. Okay everyone you heard the ship. Lets get these last loads on the trucks and get out of dodge! All trucks not currently backed to a dock return to the ship immediately. Bus Drivers, light 'em up! Marshals, I want headcounts before each bus moves out. We leave no one behind!”

**Zone Tango – Burroughs Base**

_“Cats Eye Two Oh Seven, SDF-1,”_ Claudia Grant's voice crackled over the speakers. _“Can you make a pass over the mountains west of SARA Base?”_

“Take it Warlock,” Dawn called over her shoulder as she focused on the climb-out from her eighth touch and go.

“Cats Eye Two Oh Seven Watcher, affirmative. Out.” Andrew cut the voice connection to the ship and fired back up the ship's sensors and weapons systems. Above their head, motors whirred to life and the giant, saucer shaped dome began its slow rotation. “Systems are back on-line Sunrise. Initiating data link with Slayers and SDF-1.”

“Slayer One, Sunrise,” Dawn radioed her sister. “Watcher has mission tasking from base. Sensor sweep of mountains to our south, west of SARA.”

_“Affirmative Sunrise,”_ Buffy replied. _“Angel Flight, close escort on Watcher. Everyone else form up for possible action. Spikes center, Anyas left. Sorry Skull Four, playtime's over. Form your wing and take the right flank.”_

_“Skull Four acknowledges.”_

_“Okay Slayers, lets take a line west of Watcher's track. That gives them two retreat options, us or the ship. Initiate lin-o-site coms and go radio silent.”_

“Warlock, can you bounce our laser feed off of Lobo One?” Dawn asked.

“Already on it Sunrise.”

**Mars Orbit – Wolf Squadron – Cats Eye 114 Lobo One**

_“Lobo One, Watcher Warlock. Can you relay lin-o-site data feed to SDF-1? We're going passive and dark.”_

“Watcher, Lobo Eyeball. Affirmative. Sitrep?”

_“Base detected something hinky, tasked us to take a look.”_

“Understood Watcher,” the Wolf Squadron controller answered. “All Wolf Squadron units. Heads up. Something may be happening below.” 

_“Lobo's Two and Four go to active scans. One and Three passive.”_ Commander Wolff ordered over the squadron frequency. _“Everyone be ready to punch a hole for SDF-1 to make orbit.”_

**Mountain Valleys West of SARA Base**

Lord Khyron, Commander of the 7th Mechanized Zentradi Battalion, let a glorious sneer grow on his face. No expression felt more appropriate than that as he contemplated the destruction he was about to reek upon the weak Micronians. He briefly contemplated walking his command pod over to the wreckage of the battlepod he had shot down moments before. Squashing its pilot into the arid dust would certainly allay his bloodlust long enough for the blasted gravity mines to achieve full power.

“How much longer?” he growled into his comms.

_“Ninety percent Lord Khyron,”_ the Zentradi soldier monitoring the mines answered.

A flash of light overhead drew his attention and he caught a brief glimpse of a Micronian reconnaissance plane.

“It will have to be enough,” Khyron muttered as he reached out to toggle his comms. “All forces move out. Crush all resistance! For the glory of the Zentradi and Khyron!”

~~~***~~~

“CRAP!” Dawn heard Andrew's shout from the back seat of the Cats Eye without needing the intercom.

With a click felt down her spine, ice-water ran through Dawn's veins. “Talk to me Warlock.” Reaching out, she threw the switch that relayed their conversation over the lin-o-site laser comms to the nearest Valkyries and to the SDF-1 via Lobo One.

_“Battlepods, Sunrise,”_ Andrew answered. _“Hundreds of them arrayed through the valleys between us and SARA Base.”_

“Understood.” Slipping the throttle forward another notch she eased the ship onto a westerly heading. “Angel Flight, I don't think they've spotted you stay west of my track, am falling back to Slayer Squadron.”

Faith's voice crackled back over the laser comm, her image on the left panel pixellating. _“Acknowledged Sunrise. Keep lo-pro west of Watcher.”_

_“What are you thinking Sunrise?”_ Andrew asked.

Dawn glanced up in the mirror that gave her a view of her back-seater. “While I think they saw us, if we stay passive and hold this course they may think we're an outbound patrol and we didn't see them. Which means they won't worry about us.”

**SARA Base SDF-1 Bridge**

Dawn's voice crackled over the bridge speakers. _“So long as they don't come after us, they won't see Slayer Squadron, which means we have a tactical and potentially a strategic advantage.”_

Lieutenant Claudia Grant stared openly at the monitor as the pilot of Watcher spelled out her plan. With unconscious movement she flipped the switches to include Skull 1 in the communications loop via a scrambled channel.

_“Watcher Sunrise,”_ Roy Fokker's voice broke in. _“Skull One. I like what you're thinking. Slayer One, hammer and anvil?”_

A fuzzy and heavily pixellated image of a chuckling Buffy appeared on his panel, indicating how many bounces the laser signal went through before being repeated by the SDF-1. _“Slayer One, we're the hammer. Skull One, you draw them in. We'll smash 'em flat.”_

Captain Gloval's voice intruded on the planning session she was listening to. “Claudia, bring the gravity control system on-line. Prepare to lift the ship.”

“Aye Captain.” the ship's second officer toggled the intercom connecting to engineering. “Engineering, bring gravity control systems on-line and prepare to lift the ship.”

_“Affirmative.”_

**West of SARA Base**

Buffy's eyes scanned rapidly across her console, checking the feed from Watcher's passive sensors as her squadron began a low orbit behind the mountains lining the western edge of SARA Base. “Okay Slayers, Skull and the others are going to draw the enemy force in. Once the enemy are focused on them, it's our turn. Watcher, opening round goes to you.”

_“Warlock, I'll have DeathBlossom ready to go.”_

**SARA Base**

Xander clung to the wheel of his truck as he slalomed through the forest of mecha that now dotted the road from SARA Base to the SDF-1. He was tail end charlie, following the last busload of stevedores back to the ship. He could see dust billowing from beneath the mammoth vessel as it prepared for lift off.

Already, all of the Destroids had retreated aboard and were in the process of deploying to the ship's upper decks where they could engage their clamps and act as light-weapons batteries. Unfortunately, Mars' gravity prevented the defenders from deploying to the lateral and ventral positions until after the ship made orbit.

Screaming dust plumes trailed in from the east as the Valkyrie Guardian patrols answered the recall orders to establish a defensive perimeter between the ship and the known enemy positions. Dodging one final group of fighters redeploying from Guardian to Battleoid, Xander's truck hit the DEADALUS ramp, its springs protesting loudly at the torture of hitting the incline at high speed. Not slowing, his entire rig went briefly airborne as it crested the ramp and launched itself onto the hangar deck.

Slamming the transmit button, he nearly yelled into the microphone as he careened wildly across the deck toward the link to the main body of the ship. “Bridge, Salvage Lead. All salvage teams are on board.”

Only then did he apply the brakes and begin to bring the rig back under some semblance of control.

Wild vibrations rattled up through the deck causing Xander to once again have to fight to control his truck. “What the HELL!”

~~~***~~~

“All squadrons! SDF-1 is unable to lift. Enemy has deployed gravitic mines. Prepare to receive incoming attack!” Claudia set the message to repeat twice as she began organizing the ship's defense. How Lisa made this job look so easy she would never figure out.

As she directed the fighter squadrons and armor units to positions to act as the anvil for Slayer Squadron's hammer she could hear the Captain instructing Commander Hayes on what she was needed to do to disable the mines. Grinning, she made a mental note to write Vanessa a commendation for her little suggestion. Assuming it worked.

On the sensor feeds from Lobo flight in Mars orbit, Claudia saw the first signs of enemy movement. Battlepods leaping out of the canyons and charging down the mountain slopes.

**West of SARA Base**

_“All units, this is SDF-1. Enemy is attacking from the mountains. Incoming battlepods. Skull Squadron deploy high. Red and Orange, Battleoid mode and try to slow them down as they come through the base. Green and Blue squadrons establish north-south defensive line between SARA and SDF-1.”_

In the back seat of Watcher, Andrew studied the feeds coming down from Lobo and being broadcast from the ship. As the first Battlepods moved within range, fire began to be exchanged between the two forces, growing thicker as the waves of enemy pods came faster. The fighting moved through the base becoming deeply intense as Valkyrie's with defensible positions held out viciously against charging chickenwalkers.

As the enemy moved deeper into the base, Buffy had the squadron drift its orbit closer to the mountains, staying low to keep the peaks between themselves and the enemy. Finally, the two defending squadrons were given the order to disengage and pull back to the main defensive line.

_“Okay Slayers,”_ Buffy's voice came over the link. _“Time to start our run. Form up, Watcher center forward. Spikes on their left with Skulls outboard. Angels on their right with Anyas outboard. Watcher, the show's yours!”_

In the front seat Dawn firewalled the throttle and pointed the nose of the recon plane skyward, letting the raw thrust in the light Martian gravity enable the ungainly craft to perform a maneuver that only fighters could pull on Earth. Leveling off from the zoom-climb, Andrew glanced out the windows of the cockpit at the squadron deployed slightly below and behind his plane. Making one final check of the feeds and noting the position of the enemy force he keyed his mic. _“Slayers, Warlock. Watcher going hot!”_

Cinching his helmet down tightly he threw the switches to bring the active radar systems of the Cat's Eye online. Two powerful pulses from the rotating dome quickly gave him an accurate picture of the battle below. Now came the hard part.

Pushing one final button, he activated the special targeting mode that Willow had designed into the Watcher Cat's Eye. Using the thinking cap integrated into his helmet, Andrew began assigning enemy pods as targets. Very soon he had completely maxed out the system and there were still hundreds of pods. He quickly mapped out a set of generic target coordinates several thousand feet above the enemy formation and pushed them out over the combat data net.

“All fighter squadrons this is Watcher. On my mark fire continuous missile barrage to the indicated coordinates.”

Three

Andrew studied the enemy formation and changed a few targeting assignments.

Two.

In the front seat, Dawn caressed the locked trigger for her hellram launchers. In spite of the fact that her weapons were the squadron reserve.

One.

Andrew switched the radar over to active targeting. “This is Watcher, Deathblossom active! All squadrons fire fire fire!”

Thousands of missiles arched skyward from hundreds of Valkyries, Destroids and permanent missile emplacements on the SDF-1. All closing on a fixed point directly above the enemy. As the missiles entered Watcher's capture box, they received new targeting information and were redirected downward into the massed enemy formation. If it weren't for the mind-machine integration enabled by the thinking cap, Warlock would never have been able to keep up with the pace of the targeting. Barely as fast as the targeted units were destroyed he was able to reassign resources to new targets, staying ahead of the influx of missiles.

As Xander was fond of saying, there's no such thing as overkill. If it's dead, then you used enough kill, if it's not, you haven't.

When the rain of missiles finally stopped falling, more than half the enemy pods had been obliterated.

And still the defenders were outnumbered.

**SARA Base**

“Nice work Watcher!” Buffy crowed over the Slayer Squadron frequency. “Slayers, Guardian mode and attack!”

Fitting action to words, Slayer One shifted to the hybrid plane-robot configuration, slowing over the battlefield and taking aimed shots at the disoriented battlepods below. The twelve fighters of Slayer Squadron plus the three Skulls attached to them were soon picking off pods left and right as the ground deployed Valkeries and Skull Squadron turned back into the fight.

Warlock's voice became a constant over the open net as he steered fighters from all six squadrons into the battle.

_“DAMN IT! Slayer Eleven, I'm out of ammo!”_

_“Slayer Six, I'm low too!”_

_“Two B, same!”_

Buffy glanced at her own readouts, seeing herself under a hundred rounds remaining, and still the SDF-1 was grounded. There was no time to disengage and re-arm. If they tried the ship would be over-run.

“Slayer Squadron!” Buffy called out. “What are we?”

_“//Slayers!//”_

Buffy's grin turned feral. “And what do we do?”

_“//WE SLAY!//”_

“Spikes Kick ASS!” Buffy yelled.

_“ Anyas Take names!”_ Kennedy answered.

_“And Angels party all night long!”_ Faith sang. 

“Battleoid mode!” Buffy ordered. “Pair off and go up close and personal!”

Fifteen Valkyries dropped from the sky like angry gods. Landing in the midst of the remaining battlepods they went hand to hand in a display of martial aggression unheard of by any opponent the Zentradi had ever met. Without weapons the twelve fighters buzzsawed into the enemy, tearing open their machines, punching their pilots unconscious, ripping legs, arms and weapons-mounts from the pods and leaving a trail of broken machinery and Zentradi in their wake.

**SDF-1 Bridge**

_“Goddess what I wouldn't give for a nice sword about now.”_

_“Hell yeah! Willow, you listening in? We want melee weapons!”_

_“Stop jawing and keep ripping!”_

_“Hey! Quip fu is part of the package!”_

_“Quip fu is for the enemy, not your own team!”_

Gloval looked over at his second officer as the voices of the women in Slayer Squadron continued to sound out over the speakers. While the other squadrons were engaged, it seemed that the Slayers, small as their unit was, were bearing the brunt of the fight.

_“Oh, you didn't shoot that yellow crap at me!”_

_“Easy Vi, he only scorched your paint.”_

_“HEY! I traded good ration tickets for that custom paint!”_

On the monitor, one of the Battleoids started marching through the middle of the melee grabbing onto a command pod and proceeding to rip it apart one piece at a time until the pilot was exposed. She then continued to do unspeakable things to said pilot, eventually leaving him a quivering and broken wreck in soiled underwear laying on the battlefield.

“Captain, Lisa's got the base reactor building to overload,?” Vanessa called out. “Projected time to explosion two minutes!”

The Captain looked up at the monitors. “Claudia, recall all squadrons and have Fokker detail someone to pick up Commander Hayes.”

“Aye sir!”

**Cats Eye 207 Watcher – Above SARA Base**

_“All squadrons, recall. Return to SDF-1. Base SARA reflex reactor overload in one minute thirty seconds. Repeat all squadrons get airborne or return to the ship!”_

Andrew checked his monitors. In spite of the losses inflicted, the enemy still outnumbered the defenders. The slayers were close engaged with the enemy and to hard pressed to withdraw. Any attempt to retreat would free the enemy to engage them with ranged weapons. “Sunrise, I'm activating Deathblossom, prepare to ripple fire our missiles on my mark.”

_“Understood Warlock,”_ Dawn growled in reply, somewhat upset by Andrew's impromptu choice of name for the weapons system. _“Weapons hot.”_

Once more Andrew pushed coordinates out to all the mecha engaged in the fight. “Anyone with remaining missiles, salvo fire to transmitted coordinates on my mark! Slayers, prepare to disengage on my command.”

_“Slayer One acknowledges.”_

Hastily marking all the battlepods around the Slayers, Andrew flipped the switch to activate the targeting mode of the radar. “Fire missiles!”

Dawn triggered off the six pods dangling beneath her ship's wings as a ragged wave of more missiles rose from the defensive line while a more substantial wave launched from the ship where there had been opportunity to reload the launchers.

As the first missiles tipped over at the initial point Andrew keyed the mic again. “Slayers disengage NOW NOW NOW!”

On his monitors the twelve ships of Slayer Squadron and the three Skulls all leaped skyward, converting to fighters and climbing on thundering jets and the missiles roared downward onto the enemy. As the first missiles began to strike a tremor shook the ground, growing into a massive wave that leveled the buildings of the base. As the tremor moved outward, the SDF-1 ripped free of the now disabled gravitic mine.

In the center of the base, on the heels of the last escaping Valkyrie, a bright blue ball of energy broke the surface, expanding to swallow the collapsed buildings and enemy forces that were not quick enough to escape.

As the SDF-1 continued to climb out, the surviving Valkyries began landing in the main ship docking bays while an exhausted duo swung their reconnaissance plane around to make an approach to the welcoming deck of the PROMETHEUS. 

**Mars Orbit – SDF-1**

Overhead the steady thump of landing operations indicated the recovery of Wolf Squadron's fighters and Cats Eyes was continuing apace. Meanwhile, below deck, two smelly and tired former residents of a small city called Sunnydale were glad their craft had finally been brought below where they could exit the ship.

Andrew stood on the hangar deck of the PROMETHEUS grinning broadly up at his pilot as she vaulted out of the cockpit and slid down the ladder to the deck. Loud cheering could be heard from the plane crews as the other pilots exited their craft. The pilots were clearly leading the crowds toward the Cats Eye hangar. Landing lightly on her feet Sunrise scowled deeply. Covering the distance between them in two long steps she hauled back and slammed her fist into Warlock's jaw, sending him skidding backwards across the deck on his ass.

“OOOOWWWWW!” Andrew whined. “What the hell Dawn?!?”

“I am NOT a six foot tall, green skinned lizard named GRIG!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slayer Squadron Callsigns, Flights and Minor identifying information:
> 
> **Buffy – Slayer 1 Spike Flight 1, 4, 7, 10**  
>  _Faith – Slayer 2 Angel Flight 2, 5, 8, 11_  
>  Kennedy – Slayer 3 Anya Flight 3, 6, 9, 12  
>  **Vi – Slayer 4**  
>  _Rona – Slayer 5_  
>  April – Slayer 6 Appie  
>  **LuAnn – Slayer 7 Frenemies w/Leah**  
>  _Leah – Slayer 8 Frenemies w/LuAnn_  
>  Mandy – Slayer 9 Deep south  
>  **Liz – Slayer 10 British**  
>  _Emmy – Slayer 11_  
>  Debbie – Slayer 12 NY Italian


	11. Battleoid Breakdown

****

Battleoid Breakdown

> _The average, post-war citizen of the humanisphere believes that mankind's greatest Veritech Pilot was born with the full set of skills that he so often displayed on the battlefield. This is not true. Maximillian Sterling, though extremely gifted, would never have become what the Zentradi, and later the Invid, came to call 'The Blue Devil' were it not for the crucible in which he was trained..._
> 
> _...There was much loud disapproval voiced when Commander Roy Fokker, CAG of the SDF-1 assigned Sterling to Rick Hunter's newly formed Vermillion Squadron. It seems that all three Slayer wings had designs on him as their first male Valkyrie pilot._
> 
> __
> 
> Battlepods and Bioroids: The Life of Maximillian Sterling

**SDF-1 – Macross SPACY Academy**

“Dixon!” Faith growled. “You're dropping your shoulder again!”

“Sorry Ma'am,” the stocky young Veritech trainee replied while consciously correcting his form.

“Sorry does not wash. You drop your shoulder, you may as well be screaming, 'I'm gonna punch ya with my right, now.'”

“She's right Ben,” his blue-haired sparing partner chipped in. “Why do you think I keep scoring points off of you. You're big and you're powerful, but big and powerful is not what wins the toss.”

Their Slayer Squadron close combat instructor took a slow walk around the sparing pair. “Listen to Sterling, Dixon. The rest of your class graduates next week. If you want to be with them, get this right.”

“Yes Ma'am.” The large young man redoubled his efforts as Faith stepped back to scan the room. 

Each Slayer wing had taken on training an academy cadre. Her Angels had nursed this group of twenty through five intense weeks between their own training, deployments and Dawn's little escapade in Buffy-baiting. She was keeping an eye on several of her students as possible additions to the 998. Fokker had asked Buffy to consider expanding since Skull and Wolf Squadrons were both more than four times Slayer's size. The senior slayer had agreed since a larger squadron, trained in their tactics and up to their standards would mean the ability to stand down some of the girls for on-board patrols.

The vamps had figured out that during the heavier alien attacks, the slayers were not around to defend the populace. Thus they had begun timing their predations for when the 998 was most likely to be deployed.

Faith chuckled as Ben sent Max flying into the mats outside their ring. “Good job Dixon. Sterling, keep after him for another half-hour.”

**Slayer Squadron Offices – Portside Bays – SDF-1**

Buffy glanced up from the personnel jacket she was reviewing. Her view taking in Faith, Kennedy and her sister Dawn, each huddled over a stack of folders making notes on the trainees listed within. Faith's cadre of Veritech pilot candidates were all doing well. As expected, most were excelling at the pilot training for the Valkyrie's fighter mode and were almost as good in the guardian mode. The problem was that the Battleoid mode was still a weak point. Even with their in depth martial arts training, the pilots were just not synching up well and thus falling short of expectations.

If they were on Earth with the standard three month training rotations, there would be plenty of time to work out the kinks and get the trainees up to scratch. But they were out here, just inside Mars orbit with the whole inner solar system to cross to get back to an Earth that was currently on the complete opposite side of the sun from their position. A body of space crowded with alien warships waiting to pounce. Training times had been cut in half and they still were not turning out pilots fast enough.

They needed these kids trained up into full pilots and they needed them now, not three months from now. On the other hand, sending them out without fully developed skills would mean that most of them would not survive beyond their first few missions. 

They had been lucky so far. With the exception of the 998, virtually all of the Veritech trainees that had come through had already been either pilots or other mecha operators. Even so, the squadrons had suffered high casualty rates. Now they were into their first classes of raw recruits having to learn everything from the ground up. Things were definitely not going to be pretty when these cadres began to hit the squadrons.

Shaking her head, Commander Summers began to pour over another file. The slayers were these kids' Training Officers. There was no way any of her girls were going to let them move on without having every advantage that the Slayers could pound into them.

The clatter of Dawn's pen hitting the table broke Buffy from her musing. Shaking the feeling back into her hand, the youngest of the three brunettes stretched, popping her back and neck as she did so. “God, I could so go for a round of Bronzing about now.”

Buffy blinked.

**SDF-1 CAG's Office – PROMETHEUS Hangar Deck**

“Hey Skulls, what's the biggest open space on the ship that can be cleared out on short notice?”

Fokker glanced over at the petite blonde lounging against his office's doorframe. “And a good afternoon to you too Commander Summers.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes at the Airgroup Commander.

Roy glanced down at the stack of forms on his desk then looked back up, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Slayer.”

Stepping into the room, Buffy pushed the hatch closed and dogged it before spinning the only empty chair around backwards and perching on it, her arms crossed on the seatback. “I'm not thanking you for that.”

Now it was Roy's turn to cock an eyebrow.

“The promotion.”

Roy shook his head. “You earned that one yourself, you and your little sister. That plan you two pulled together at SARA was all Captain Gloval needed to approve the paperwork. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, my name is not the one on your commendation paperwork. That was all Claudia.”

Letting her head fall onto her arms, Buffy sighed. “Who you happen to be dating.”

“So? She was the SDF-1 combat controller that day. In case you didn't notice, we were both under her orders.”

“Yeah, but you didn't have to stand in front of all those people...”

“Ahem.” Roy pointed to the ribbons that adorned the fatigue tunic he sometimes had to wear when his flight-suit was considered socially unacceptable.

“Fine,” Buffy grumped. “But I am _not_ happy being number three behind you and Wolff when we're out there.”

Fokker waved a hand over the paperwork loaded desk. “What, you want _my_ job?”

Buffy snorted. “NO! I'm perfectly happy leading my girls, I don't need to be in the chain to take over while the two of you try to spring your birds out of the body and fender shop.”

Roy's eyes bugged out at the implied slight to his piloting abilities. Like he would need someone to lead the fight for any other reason than needing to resupply his fighter.

“So,” he half growled. “What do you need this 'open space' for?”

“Just some unorthodox Battleoid training for Faith's cadre.”

**ISWC Headquarters – Dawn's Room**

Half-insane giggles filled the small room.

“Seriously?” Faith's voice had taken off on a booster climb.

Dawn nodded vigorously. “Willow's willing to do the spell. You just have to pick out the dress.”

“But...”

“Don't worry,” Dawn grinned. “Willow guarantees that the dresses won't damage anything.”

Appie's giggles chose that moment to morph back into full-out guffaws.

Faith groaned into her hands. “It's like a train wreck, but I have to ask...”

April stifled her laughter briefly, trying to assume a serious expression. “Accessorizing.” She failed.

The dark slayer's eyes' widened. “That would be _some_ bag.”

**SDF-1 – DEADALUS**

“Move it Ben. Otherwise we'll be late.”

“I'm moving Max,” the large trainee huffed. “Why'd they call a training scramble now?”

The lanky cadet ignored his friend's grousing as he slowed to a fast march approaching the main personnel hatch to the DEADALUS. Stopping at the portal, he saluted the colors painted on the wall. “Cadets Dixon and Sterling reporting for training.”

“Cutting things kinda fine tonight,” the guard replied. “Report to Corridor C off the forward well-deck. Your training cadre will receive their final orders there.”

As they stepped through, a jeep cleared the neighboring vehicle checkpoint, Faith's familiar voice calling out; “Better shake it boys, you don't wanna miss tonight's festivities!”

The whine of electric motors and the slap of rubber on the steel deck wound up and then quickly faded into the distance. Both young men breaking into a jog in its wake.

**DEADALUS – Well Deck – Corridor C**

“Okay Cadets,” Faith's voice echoed off of the metal ceiling and walls. “Your mission tonight begins as soon as you step through these doors into the bays containing your mecha. You have exactly 45 minutes to power up and follow the instructions you will be given upon stepping through those doors. Now spread out and find the door with your name on it. As soon as the light turns red, the timer starts.”

Twenty cadets scattered down the corridor. As soon as the lights came on they all charged through the doors. Each was greeted by a maintenance tech who handed them a single sheet of paper.

> Party time boys and you have to dress your best. Mount up, power up and then get your Valkyrie into the pants and shirt provided. The clock is running and us ladies are waiting outside the bay.

**DEADALUS – Well Deck**

Buffy walked her battleoid over to the machine wearing the red dress, only mildly self-conscious about the gold toga draped across her own Valkyrie's frame. “So Faith, how many of them do you think will actually manage the challenge.”

The screen to the left of her panel lit up. _“Honestly, I think only one of them will manage it without shredding the 'clothes'. Of course Dawn did up the difficulty for our best pilot.”_

Buffy turned to look at the walkway where her sister, Willow and Xander were finishing setting up for the second half of tonight's challenge. “Do I really want to know?”

At that point, the first door opened, revealing a Valkyrie Battleoid wearing what appeared to be jeans, vest and a cowboy hat. Surprisingly enough, only slightly shredded.

Dawn squealed at the sight and started doing a victory dance. Buffy proceeded to facepalm her mech.

Faith's mech tapped Buffy's on the shoulder. _Hey B, check out bay three._

Uncovering her main sensors, she did a double-take. “Is that mech driver adjusting a BOW TIE?”

_Sterling, Ma'am. Maximillian Sterling._ The pilot of the mecha that appeared to be wearing a tuxedo replied.

“And he thinks he's James freaking Bond too!”

**Roy Fokker's Quarters**

Claudia looked at the screen, then at Roy, then at the screen again. Horror, fascination and mirth all warred on her face. “Please!”

“No,” Roy replied. “We can NOT show this to Lisa.”

Claudia batted her eyelashes and whined. “But Roy...”

On the large wall mounted screen, thirty-two Valkyrie Battleoids, twelve in dresses, 19 in cowboy attire in various states of distress and one impeccably dressed in a tuxedo proceeded to country line dance to Brooks and Dunn's 'Boot Scootin Boogie'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0JjHkhATfI _The boss had been playing country music on the radio at work all week. I blame her for this._


	12. Two Steps from Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It is highly recommended that you listen to these four musical tracks while reading the following chapter as Dawn's talent show entry is choreographed to them in the order they are presented. The chapter title is an homage to the musical artists.  
> [Birth of a Hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQbmW1AND2w)  
> [Spirit of Champions](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgoO3MtB00A)  
> [Forces of Destiny](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4tOrRgnxfU)  
> [Protectors of the Earth](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASj81daun5Q)_

**Two Steps from Hell**

> _So Lynn Minmei won. I don't care. I mean I only did this to tweak Buffy... Besides second runner up??? And I beat-out that stuck up movie starlet has been too! So why am I crying?  
>  -Dawn Summers Diary_

**Act One - Silence**

The stage is dark and cold as I step from the wings. I am dressed as a cheerleader. Wearing the red and white colors of my sister's first High School. Hemery. Glimmering in the distance, beyond the boundaries of my world I vaguely sense them. Those who watch. My audience. Dim lights reflect from their various shiny accoutrements like nighttime stars. Silence fills the amphitheater as I step to my first mark at backstage left. A follow spot high overhead flicks on, enveloping me in a warm glow from above. The count in my head begins. Three. Like the crawl of electricity across my skin at the edge of a thunderstorm I sense the beginning of my prepared track. Two. I look up, beyond the audience. One.

_Naive._

As the echo of my recorded voice dies I smile and skip three steps forward on the stage.

_A child._

I slowly turn, and take five casual steps toward stage right.

_I walk alone._

The spot blinks out and I freeze.

_In the darkness._

Dim red spots cast an evil glow across the eleven. 

_Among the monsters._

Dressed in black and wearing masks of incomparably hideous evil, my opponents begin to drift across the stage in my direction. On the giant screens flanking the stage images flash. Simple line drawings of the manifold supernatural beings.

_Demons!_

I again turn to the audience as the others all brandish ancient weapons. Half bear swords. Half battleaxes.

_Vampires!_

My spot snaps up to full brightness, they charge and I unleash a piercing scream.

Every light snaps off and the music begins.

**Act Two:[Birth of a Hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQbmW1AND2w)**

The others rush from the stage and my spot comes back up slowly. The click of footsteps on the hardwood of the stage come from my left rear. Xander coming out on his cue to stand by my shoulder, he is wearing khaki pants, a red henley shirt and one of Giles' brown tweed jackets. He leans in as if whispering.

I shake my head no and move away from him to stage right.

He follows.

The big screens to either side showing our actions to the audience. I spin, face him with my hands on my hips and mouth an exaggerated NO. Pointing a finger in his face, I brush by him, stomping to stage left. Our individual spots following the motion.

As my step count reaches ten, behind me, Xander throws his hands in the air and mouths an exaggerated HEY.

Turning, I face him. The moment we had rehearsed endlessly upon us. In a flash, his hand moved behind his back, coming out with a large knife.

As he flipped it in his hand his eyes locked with mine and I gave a subtle nod.

Cocking his arm he flung the knife at my head, its chromed metal blade flashing in the lights of the amphitheater. A foot in front of my face my hands slapped together around the flat sides of the blade, stopping it there.

Screams and applause momentarily drowned out my soundtrack, but neither Xander nor I allowed that to stop our movement as he walked up and took me by the shoulder. Pulling a stake from behind his back, he pressed it into my hands and lead me to back stage right.

Prone on the floor, Faith lay in wait, her vampire mask in place. Our approach triggered the red spot focused on her and she clawed her way off the ground. Xander fell back as she charged at me.

At her swing I fell to the ground, rolling as she dived after me, dodging her punches and lunges at my neck. Scrambling backwards I made sure to click the stake loudly on the floor for the audience. On her feet, Faith charged me again and was met by my feet which launched her into brief flight and roll to backstage left. 

Climbing to my feet at center stage I met her next charge stake first, mid-chest. The collapsible stake appearing to sink in.

Faith threw herself backwards, arms spread, the red light snapping off as she hit the floor.

**Act Three:[Spirit of Champions](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgoO3MtB00A)**

Xander resumed his place at my shoulder as the screen flanking the right side of the stage began to cycle rapid-fire images of fallen potentials, slayers and watchers. On the left scrolled the words Giles had drilled into us since we each first found out about that which hunted us in the darkness.

> _In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer._

This was followed by a list of the names of every known slayer in the order of their deaths, beginning with Sineya. Buffy's name was on there three times, once before and twice after Kendra Young before all the potentials killed by the First and those slayers we had lost since Willow's spell.

Xander stepped beside me and threw a punch with his right fist. I copied his stance and did the same. He did the same with his left, again I followed.

Moving in front of me, I punched at him and he blocked. He then punched and I blocked. Slowly we built up from stationary to taking small steps forward and back as we punched and blocked. Kicks were added and our movements grew until we were moving back and forth across the width of the stage. 

When our movement took us all the way to stage right he turned, picking up a pair of swords. Tossing one to me, he stabbed and I blocked, the ring of steel on steel shocking the audience. I swung at him and he blocked. His block rotated around into an overhead swing which I met with my blade, both hands firmly grasping the hilt.

Somewhere in the audience, over the music I heard a guy yell _“There can be only one!”_ and almost laughed.

Cold metal flashing in the bright spots, I let that laughter channel into a grin and our swordplay expanded from the basic to include every move and dirty trick we could work into the time. 

At stage left we switched to wooden quarterstaves. This time I attacked hard and fast, Xander matching my moves with a smile on his face that I had seen only rarely since Sunnydale. We spun around each other, the clack of the wooden weapons a counterpoint to the beat of our music. 

Stage right again, and for the final pass of this act we scooped up a pair of battle axes and came up swinging. Once more the crash of metal on metal had people involuntarily jumping in their seats.

As the last note of the music struck and began to fade, our lights snapped off and the red spots came up, again illuminating my eleven friends, masked and armed as in the first act, standing evenly spaced along the back curtain.

**Act Four:[Forces of Destiny](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4tOrRgnxfU)**

I strode to front stage center, facing the audience, my head looking at the foot of the stage, my shoulders slumped. The stake in my right hand and the axe held loosely in my right. I had meant this moment to represent Buffy's prophesied death at the hands of the Master, but a single opponent could not convey his threat, so I chose to represent him with a fight against everyone. The music track began and slowly I raised my head, looking out beyond the audience. Squaring my shoulders I set my features in my own version of Willow's 'resolve face'.

Behind me, the girls had moved together at center stage back, brandishing their weapons threateningly. Turning with the swell of the music I unleashed a primal scream and charged. 

I was first met by Faith, her sword tangling my battleaxe. She kicked out and I twisted, letting it brush past my stomach while lifting my own leg to sweep across and then behind her other leg and letting her take herself down around it. Her sword clattering free as she slid out of the light.

Rona and Vi jumped forward, one swinging high, the other low. Again I avoided the attacks, throwing one into the other and they too fell from the light. The remaining eight came at me from both sides simultaneously. My axe flashed in the light. Weapons rose and my axe met them. Punches were thrown and dodged or blocked. I kicked and a friend would go flying backwards from the fight, but there were so many and I was constantly turning in place to meet the next one.

The moment came and Kennedy swung. I glisaded the strike with my axe but let it appear as if it struck me and I fell. As I hit the floor at center stage, there was a loud gasp from the audience. The others retreated to backstage right.

Xander ran across the stage, sliding on his knees to my side, his arms wrapping around me and cradling my head against his chest. His expression distraught, he lowered me to the floor leaned over and kissed me. Oh goddess, all the rehearsals for this and he never... He kissed me. All my daydreams back in Sunnydale about a romantic moment and he kisses me in front of over five thousand witnesses.

I had to put that aside. The last note was fading.

As I sat up, a dim spot began to build on a white dressed figure at backstage left.

Buffy.

**Act Five:[Protectors of the Earth](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASj81daun5Q)**

Xander helped me stand. Putting on a pair of glasses, he pulled a book from his pocket and wandered to front stage right while pretending to read. As I watched him walk away, I was attacked from behind.

Hearing the steps, I turned and met Buffy's punch with a block and threw one back at her. We exchanged blows toward front stage left as Xander ran back over, grabbing and separating us. Shaking a finger in our faces, he pushed us together then pointed to the group at backstage right.

The demon group moved forward two steps. I looked at Buffy and she looked at me. We nodded and charged to meet the others at center stage. Buffy zeroed in on Faith and Faith did the same with her. The rest of us were choreographed in what we were to do, but from this point until almost the final moments, Buffy and Faith would be sparing full out along the back curtain.

Appie came at me swinging. I captured her arm, spun her too me, wrapping an arm around her throat I grabbed the mask and pulled it free, before throwing her toward backstage left, where she slid beneath the curtain while I turned to the rest of the fight.

Moments later, Appie ran from backstage right, her black clothes removed to reveal a white outfit like Buffy's. Appie moved to my side to defend as we faced off against the other nine. Vi came next, grappling with me, wrapping me up and leaning in like she was going to sink fangs into my neck. I dropped, slithering out of her grip and swept her legs from under her. Before she could rise I had pulled off her mask and sent her sliding the same direction as Appie.

Then there were three of us against eight while Buffy and Faith wailed on each other behind us.

We began to demonstrate teamwork, with Vi tossing Rona to Appie who spun her to face me. Again I removed her mask before Appie sent her sliding under the curtain. The odds were now evening out. Vi presented me with Leah, then Appie held out LuAnn as Rona ran back into the fight.

I faced off with Debbie, while Appie faced off with Mandy, Rona took Emmy and Vi had Liz. Behind us, Buffy sent a madly smiling Faith flying across the entire width of the stage. I threw a kick that sent Mandy flying, allowing me to close with Debbie, who found herself maskless and sliding under the curtain as LuAnn and Leah ran out to front stage right and began doing a Tai Chi form.

Mandy knocked Appie sliding towards Leah and charged me. In the midst of a rapid series of blows I closed with her and moments later, her mask came free and she too went sliding backstage. Debbie came out, she and Appie joining the group doing the form as Rona tossed Emmy to me. As I removed Emmy's mask, Rona fell back to join Mandy with the others. Vi soon did the same with Liz, leaving me in front of Buffy and Faith.

Grabbing each other shoulders, the two threw themselves in my direction, rolling across the stage. Drawing my stake I knelt at their side and dropped it into Faith's chest as Buffy pulled her mask free and sent it skittering across the stage.

Rising we turned to face the audience and I stepped to front center stage, my sister and the dark slayer standing at center stage. The others moving swiftly across to fan out, fading back on either side of me, all of us standing at rest as the music faded.

“WE,” Buffy's voice echoed into the silence. “Are Slayers!”

“We stand against the darkness,” Faith answered.

“//Ad Esse Fortis!//” The other ten shouted.

“Ready,” I lifted my arms out beside me as to say, this is who I am, there is nothing more as time ran out on my talent presentation. “Ready to be strong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Please review.
> 
> Some day I may come back to this and write the next arc, taking them from Miss Macross through to the Rain of Death. If I do, it will be done as a sequel story.


End file.
